To raise awareness for Nike’s sweatshop labor and Adam Brandejs has stitched together his own pair of basketball shoes with what looks like real human skin.
The shoe even moves, or better yet, twitches. The shoe is stitched together with multiple pieces of latex rubber cast out of moulds made from the artists own skin, as well as: steel, gear motors, printed circuit, rio MP3 player, batteries, staples and his friends hair. You can watch a video of the shoe in action here.

Artist Statement:
It’s a Nike shoe stapled together with human flesh, twitching…
Other than simply being twisted, this piece comments on issues of sweatshop labour and content ownership. Each piece of skin is therefore different in colour, size, and texture and the Nike Logo is done in white, slapped overtop of all the other colours. Really, either you’re going to get it or you’re not.
While your 10 year old son or daughter whines about not having the coolest shoes for school, another 10 year old on the other side of the world will never need worry about such issues as they won’t get to go to school, they make shoes for 3 cents a day instead. Thus, the shoe represents the lives put into it. People like to ignore the reality of the issue, or come up with simple solutions such as “we’re giving –them- work” thanks, I’m sure the world would fall apart without such generosity. And I’m sure before sweatshops the world crumbled.
If the flesh disturbs you, then the reality behind the issue would disturb you far more if we opened our eyes long enough to see it.
We live in a culture disconnected from what it is doing to itself and others, we choose to ignore rather than deal with the reality we have created for ourselves. This piece ultimately comments on this simple idea.












