Sophie de Oliveira Barata

How did you first realize that you wanted to become a prosthetic limb designer?
I was studying arts, and I was working at a hospital, and I think I was actually very interested in... there was a TV programme which was called Casualty, I don’t know if you remember that. So I was looking at all the special effects on that, and I was quite interested, so I thought, oh wow, if I could do something vocational like, you know, learn prosthetics, like, but more monster makeup or, you know, wounded soldiers or, you know, anything like that, that would be really interesting. So, I got into special effects with a view to going into the film industry and then on that course I learned how to apply prosthetics and that was a small part of it. And then when it came to graduating, I’d heard about someone making prosthetic limbs for amputees. And I thought, well, that would be massively rewarding, so I guess initially I was making just realistic limbs, then I was making alternative limbs for people that wanted something unusual and now I do both of those, but I mainly do works for exhibitions.

How do the projects vary, like, say, if you’re doing something for a museum or a gallery, do you prefer certain projects?
In terms of from an artistic perspective, I love it when I get a commission, an art commission, because it means that I can just be really free. An example being “The Vine Arm” that was created. We had sensors in her shoes. So, when she moved her toes deliberately against the sensors, it would Bluetooth to the arm and then the arm would move depending on which sensor was activated. And that was exciting because it was alternative in style, movement and control. So because she got so used to moving her toes and moving her arm, that night she actually dreamt that she was moving her arm with her toes. So, it was almost like she programmed her mind to move this arm in a different way. And so that was really thrilling.