In Kano, a major city in northern Nigeria, leather artisans carry on an ancient craft handed down from generation to generation, through every manual step of the material’s transformation. With a sensitive, immersive approach, this series, shot in September 2025, highlights the precise gestures involved in working this natural material. The bodies at work and the spaces where goat, sheep and snake skins are tanned reveal techniques that combine tradition and modernity.

The leather is then exported and enters European production chains, where only the final stage of the process remains to be done. The finished goods are stamped with foreign labels — “Made in France”, “Made in Italy” — with no indication of where the raw material comes from. Yet the leather, luxury and fashion industries depend heavily on Nigeria, which exports 90% of its hides.