The discovery of Aylan Kurdi's lifeless body washed up on a Turkish beach embodied the perils refugees face when fleeing war zones. Defenseless children who have no choice but to go where their parents or guardians take them and desperate parents trying to find a better life for themselves and their children. 

This image has been used (and abused) by many agents around the world with different agendas. In the process, the gravity and poignancy of the subject has been dissipated if not lost all together. All one has to do is search Aylan Kurdi images to see the extent to which this image has been exploited...some good, some bad, some very bad.

I chose a different approach to depicting this tragedy. The LED top lighting pulses and represents sunlight under water. The doll, dressed in similar colours to what Aylan was wearing at the time, is suspended upside down in a glass enclosure as if in free fall. The accompanying video which is projected onto a wall near the glass enclosure is simultaneously reflected in the glass and forms a virtual backdrop against which the child figure is viewed.