For my new magazine 'elleven magazine,' I interviewed founder and creator of the Alternative Limb Project Sophie De Barata!
Here you go...!
After
studying special effects and prosthetics, graduate of London University of the
Arts Sophie De Barata decided to make a very beautiful change to the lives of
the many people affected with missing limbs today. Giving them the new lease of
life, and control that they deserve.
Sophie
started out her career interning for a small prosthetics company, ending up
staying with the small team for eight years and on the side playing around with
her skills in silicone. “I was making all these kind of costume pieces, I don’t
know why. I think I was going out quite a lot at the time, and it was just like
ah, I think ill make something that I can kind of see being worn and interact
with. So I made all of these kind of random costume pieces, and I built up
quite a collection and I was like why have I got all of these like, what am I
doing with it?” This then sparked an idea, along with a little girl asking for
a Peppa Pig prosthetic leg; why not combine Sophie’s love for anything creative,
with making these life changing prosthetics for people. “I could see the
rehabilitation and thought actually it makes complete sense. It’s really
valuable having this service of getting a realistic leg, its amazing, and it
does a lot self esteem wise for a lot of people who are at a really vulnerable
time in their lives. At the same time, why do you feel necessarily that you
just have to stick to what you’ve had before, just to blend in if you can use
that space in a completely different way? And be playful with it and see it for
what it is as well?”
The
whole process is actually quite a learning curve for Sophie and for the client,
Sophie asks for around 50 images of anything that inspires or visually excites
them, it could be a rusty old car to simply a flower. “It’s nice to have people
that sometime don’t know what they want, and you can kind of uncap their
imagination, but its also nice to have someone that turns up and knows exactly
what they want.” After this is all thoroughly gone over and both parties are
happy with the design, Sophie can start the process of making them a completely
bespoke leg.
Starting
the Alternative Limb Project in the summer of 2012, one of the most exciting
opportunities was approaching; the London 2012 Paralympics. Already in contact
with snow queen Viktoria Modesta, Sophie and Viktoria started to create this
majestic one off piece for Viktoria’s opening ceremony. The ice Queen leg, “they
were just going to have her with her regular foam shaped leg, no one would know
she’s an amputee. Once she was doing rehearsals she approached the director and
said, ‘you know I know someone that could do some amazing stuff with my leg,
why don’t we turn it into a feature, it’s the Paralympics, why don’t we make a
point of the fact that I’m an amputee and I’m being spun round on one leg in
these massive heels.’” For the ceremony, Viktoria’s costume was sponsored by
Swarovski, so it was Sophie’s job to crystalize the snow queens leg. “They gave
me basically what they had left which was an entire table full of crystals, which
was amazing.” Sophie sneaks in that she actually still has some of the crystals
left, I can just imagine them dotted around Sophie’s workshop glamming up the
odd silicone hand or foot. “I started experimenting with the crystals having
got a drawing of the outfit she was wearing. I had to keep it really
lightweight though, that was always a factor because all the jewels were
getting really heavy. So I used parts of plastic bottles and lined it, they
probably hate the idea that I used plastic bottles alongside their crystals but
I had to think of other ways to keep it light.”
Viktoria
Modesta is an amputee model with a cracking pair of leg’s, no one can deny
that, another design Sophie created for the model was her stereo leg. A speaker
actually fitted, and working into her prosthetic. Amputees are not seen enough
in mainstream media, and this is the important change that Sophie hopes to have
an impact with, “Prosthetics within mainstream media is definitely changing,
with the Paralympics anyway. I don’t know whether its just because I’m in it, I
see it all the time. I get so many emails from amputees and full bodied people
contacting me and saying ‘oh this is amazing, I’m really inspired by this,’ so
its great to have a conversation and open it up to the general public as well.”
Next
on the agenda, the chandelier leg, yes, chandelier. Sophie’s recent project for
Paralympian Steph Reid, Steph was also the face of Debenhams diversity
campaign. “Steph gave me one of her old running blades and asked me to do
something fun with it as she’s gone into modeling for a bit. I’ve done some
laser cut Perspex mirror shards that are all contoured around her socket, they
are going to reflect everything that is around her, and it will look like a
chandelier on the bottom of her leg.” Sophie’s really into changing and playing
around with the diversity of the prosthetic, with others focusing on how to
make prosthetics as real to life as possible, “I’m not really interested in
that, its more a case of using the space in a different way and almost like treating
it as an accessory I guess, so like the speakers or secret compartments, even a
sat nav!”
With
a very one on one focus, it’s hard for Sophie to branch further afield than the
UK, but with recent contact from people across the globe, the idea of doing
things overseas really excites Sophie. “I got an enquiry from Papa New Guanine”
Sophie laughs, “but that didn’t really come to anything. A clinic in Dubai got
in touch and I thought that would be really cool! There’s certainly scope to go
global, I just don’t have anyone over the globe that can touch base with
clients for me, so that limits me somewhat. It’s just about working out how to
do it.”
After
taking the most minimal amount of time off for her recent arrival of a little
baby, Sophie is already back to work creating her next piece, an alien vs
predator leg, something else for the world to marvel at.
