At the Alternative Limb Project, prosthetic legs aren’t seen as impediments but instead as blank canvases for art and expression. They create beautifully imagined prostheses, unlike anything you’ve ever seen, that are bespoke and uniquely tailored to the wearer’s taste and requirements. They’re functional, unusually stylish, quirky and different, making them alternative in many a sense of the word.
Director of the project, Sophie de Oliveira Barata, studied at the London Arts University, where she learnt how to make special effects prosthetics for film and TV. This background, plus eight years working on lifelike prostheses at leading providers, gave her a set of skills to not only design realistic prosthetic limbs but also to give them more creative elements too. Collaborating with prosthetics providers and other artists with different skills – in laser cutting, graphics, metalwork and more – she is able to design limbs which are not only assistive, but imaginative pieces of art in their own right.
Sophie makes realistic limbs that are exactly that – realistic – with a staggering level of detail and almost spooky likeness to biological arms. But it’s with the truly alternative limbs that the project comes into its own. From the surreal to the completely unreal, the prostheses are all such a daring break from traditional limbs. Surreal limbs blend things like bionic components and 3D reliefs with a more realistic model. Unreal prostheses go even further, creating completely imagined models from scratch using materials like metals, crystals, and even secret compartments.
One reason for developing these new limbs has been to create a talking point, for when amputees meet people and their impairment can be a bit of an elephant in the room. It’s a clever way of taking any awkwardness away from such situations, as the prosthesis ceases to be the elephant in the room and becomes an accessory to discuss. All prosthetic limbs are like an item of clothing, or an extension of shoes – worn every time you leave the house – but until now there hasn’t been a lot done to make them stylish or attractive, as you would with other such items. Alternative Limbs have completely turned that on its head, becoming more interesting than any pair of shoes you’re likely to see!
Of course, many of these Alternative Limbs are such statement pieces that they might not be for everyone’s taste, nor for all occasions. One may need to be something of an exhibitionist to want a really extravagant one, but they are so cutting edge and exciting and they provide a creative, and alternative, alternative to your average prosthetic limb.
They’re incredible pieces of art that look stunning and have an important use and message behind them. They’re extraordinary – both alternative limbs and alternatives to limbs.
Find out more at The Alternative Limb Project website.