Body Parts for Sale Series: 04 Kidney part 2

about the exhibition

Explore my inspiration for the Body Parts for Sale exhibition in this blog post - Body Parts for Sale Series: Intro

KIDNEY

In the wake of the 2004 tsunami that took the lives of hundreds of thousands and made countless others homeless, kidney brokering completely exploded in India and other affected countries. Although organ traffickers had always been present, they were now more ruthless than ever, targeting the desperate people of the refugee camps. In one Indian camp, nearly every woman has sold one of her kidneys, nicknaming it “Kidneyville”. Here, people from all over the world flock to buy organs at a discount. Meanwhile the locals, receiving insufficient aid from their government, have little choice but to sell parts of themselves. What impossible decisions might we make, when desperate enough?

The diagonal scar of a kidney transplant sparked a lot of inspiration in me. The first print I created, read post here, had a lot of detail and repetition and I had something much simpler on my mind also. A white diagonal line on a black background.

Using spray mount I glued vlieseline to a 1 mm cardboard. Then I drew a diagonal line with glue. To achieve a thicker and more uneven edge I traced the glue with my finger. After sealing the plate with shellac it was time to print. As always when I use vlieseline it is difficult to tell if the black areas are completely saturated with ink to become as black as I want them to be.

This time it worked pretty well and I like the simplicity of the final print. Although the idea is very simple there are small details along the edge of the lines that give the print a deeper quality.