Artin Iran Nezhad

Artin Iran Nezhad's little body washed up on a Norwegian beach 3 months after he drowned with his whole family attempting crossing the Channel. I felt this story needed including in Just the clothes on their backs: bear witness an installation in Mouth of the Shark an exhibition in the Lord Mayor's Pavilion Cork July 8-31st.

I trawled the charity shops for an appropriate hoodie which I taped down and then lay a PVC sheet on it and traced the clothing with a Dremmel engraver. I have been exploring all manner of acrylic type materials and engraving tools and I chose these because I could easily and cheaply get large sheets of PVC. The Dremmel engraver is very efficient at markmaking on PVC.

I used photoshop to scale and flip the other images I wanted on the hoodie

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I inked up the plate with etching ink and carefully wiped it clean. I soaked the silk in water and blotted it. I lay the plate on the etching press and the damp silk on top - then newsprint and blankets and rolled it through the press

I hung it out to dry on a clothesline - it will be part of an installation telling migrant stories on items of clothing hanging on a clothesline. Many migrants travel with just the clothes on their backs. The installation imagines the clothes can talk and what they would say.