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Abstract

For her video-work ‘Etui’ Maja Bajevic, a Bosnian artist, asked a group of leather-workers to sew an outfit.1 Tanning and leather-work was a flourishing industry before the war, but this time the task was not to produce an ordinary jacket or a comfortable pair of trousers, but a dress designed to fit the outside of a small house in the ‘Old Town’ in the city of Sarajevo. The video shows the artist in a discussion about the project with the workers who are working in an old, shabby factory. They tell her that a new factory is soon to be opened in the neighbourhood, with slick modern leather-production machines and Italian owners. The new factory is going to be built with the latest technology, and their machines will be able to work one piece of leather as a whole, compared to the older style of two pieces of leather. Whether the new factory will be the death of the older one remains to be seen. So far, one thing is certain, namely that the new factory’s managers are hiring away the young and vital men from the old factory.