Seedcorn 2023/2024

The desire to replace missing body parts dates back thousands of years with glass eyes for facial prostheses found over 3000 BC in Iran. Modern reconstructive prosthetics emerged during the world wars to aid frontline casualties' rehabilitation, and arts-based research of their narratives show how such holistic care influenced 21st century approaches. Prostheses crafted post-trauma, surgery or congenital absence uniquely blend traditional arts with materials science for enhancing bodily confidence. Users undergo multiple appointments for impressions, prototypes, and fitting, with reconstructive scientists providing long-term support for adaptive modifications. These prostheses, akin to Mark Gilbert's (2020) collaborative portraiture research with facial difference patients, serve as lasting artistic documentations of a built relationship. The North Bristol Reconstructive Prosthetics Department (NBRPD) produces bespoke facial and body prosthetics, 3D printed implants, and digitally planned surgical devices, alongside emerging technologies including photogrammetry and virtual/augmented reality for visualise planning. The evolving physical/digital interface will define the future of this specialised field.

However, prostheses are not static objects, but moved, handled, and living up to demanding daily stresses. Prostheses need to adapt with climate changes, requiring materials resilient to complex environmental conditions. Future facial prosthetics anticipate technological revolutions, integrating AI, 3D printing, and shifts towards eco-friendly materials aligning with healthcare sustainability. Haptic feedback and neural interfaces may offer sensory experiences akin to natural touch and emotions, enhancing authenticity and quality of life in navigating societal stigmas. Prostheses may also evolve to reflect personalities and self-expression, with art projects including the Alternative Limb Project challenging what prosthetics should aesthetically entail. Furthermore, academic scholars such as designer Sara Hendren discuss disability as a social phenomenon that should be placed within everyday design solutions.

What will the project involve? 

With the modern world arguably poorly designed for bodily difference, the project seeks to challenge and explore what could be possible. It will utilise a series of three ‘Art Laboratories’ set-up in The Island public art gallery, Bristol, where a unique interdisciplinary group from the local community will co-design speculative future reconstructive prosthetics. These make-shift laboratory spaces will utilise resources bridging the interface of tactile physical making and digital technologies, including fine art materials and tools, laboratory equipment used for sculpting prostheses and immersive digital technologies.

The project aims to highlight co-design in reimagining the future of facial prosthetics and challenge conventional approaches for personalised and innovative outcomes. The process prioritises inclusivity and empathic design for richer solutions. The art project will offer a glimpse into a future where facial prosthetics may be dynamically adaptive and customisable, but also a means of artistic expression, promoting a more inclusive and diverse perception of beauty.

Alongside the core team of 5 professional collaborators, the team will put out an open call for 6 collaborators from the NBRPD community of service users. They will seek adults from Bristol with NBRPD established gatekeepers for correspondence. Particular preference will be given to service users connected to the department from diverse backgrounds, ages and under-represented groups as lived-experience experts in the co-design process.

Art Laboratory Workshops:

There will be 3 in-person workshops at the Island Gallery will facilitate physical making with drawing, sculpting, and using laboratory materials including silicone, plaster and ceramics. Collaborators will explore the interface with technologies including capturing 3D photogrammetry models and visualising/creating designs in augmented and virtual reality. With the expertise involved, we will collectively develop novel prototype ideas.

The process will be rooted in exploring the senses, with meaning-making reflected upon questions of physicality, embodiment, psychology and speculating upon interfacing the physical/digital in future prostheses. Collaborators will be supported in reflective creative journaling and artwork taken home to educate and inspire others. Successive workshop content will be responsively developed from collaborator generated ideas.

Between Art Laboratory workshops, group speculative art and design ideas for facial prostheses will be further developed at NBRPD laboratory to bring creations to life with handcrafting, 3D printing and machinery processing. These 3D objects brought to subsequent workshops will spark discussion, inspiration and dynamically inform resource production.

All collaborators will be posted creatives resources in advance of workshops as prior stimulus and advance organisers to feed into the iterative process of co-designing together. Moreover, collaborators will be invited to the online platform Discord for up to date information about the workshops, sharing of ideas, creative works, and sparking of thoughts between sessions. The open source tool will be a hub for digital sharing.

Who are the team and what do they bring?

• Simon Hall (Primary Care, University of Bristol) is a visual artist dual qualified in medicine and dentistry with over a decade of experience delivering art/science collaborations for arts, health, charitable and academic institutions. His participatory work utilises installation, sculpture and bio-art to consider the body in health and disease, medical ethics and emerging technologies. He has particular expertise in the artistic exploration of facial difference and the interface of the body with ecology. Simon Hall’s Website.
• Ali Cobb (South West Cleft Service) is a consultant face surgeon who, as lead surgeon for the South West Cleft Service, drives ideas for novel and holistic solutions in reconstructive surgery for direct implementation into patient care.
• Amy Davey (North Bristol Hospitals Trust) leads the North Bristol Reconstructive Prosthetics Department. Her contemporary prosthetics practice is spearheading new technology integration for patients, collaborating across disciplines and industries, alongside training the next generation of reconstructive scientists.
• Julia Cadogan (UHBW) is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, previously leading the South West Cleft Service and Children’s Burns Unit departments for psychology. She is an advocate for creative methodologies in psychological exploration of facial difference and stigma. Julia collaborated with Simon Hall on the high impact creative arts project ‘A Cleft In Time’ published in the Lancet (Child & Adolescent Health) involving the arts, psychology and surgery.
• Catherine Lamont-Robinson is an artist, academic, and medical educator who co-leads the Bristol Medical School humanities course on Facial Difference and Identity with Simon Hall. She additionally co-leads the Blue Health course exploring nature and healthcare. With a doctorate in creative exploration of senses and disability, her background and expertise in embodiment, tactile materials and academic rigour of health narratives bring innovative insights.

What is to come?

The project at its core will aim to produce striking and innovative art and design. Group measures for success and shared outcome benefits will be agreed collectively at project commencement. The primary aim will be reflective learning from experimentally trialling interdisciplinary co-design for reconstructive facial prosthetics. Creative content including physical 3D objects, 2D imagery and writing in-person and online will be data, with reflections upon their iterative co-production the principal goal.

Arts Council funding will be sought as a result of the Seedcorn Fund for a professional exhibition at Southmead Hospital of collaborator artwork.

An academic paper sharing the project learning for art/science audiences. The project will be submitted for presentation at relevant conferences

An accompanying Prosthetic Futures webpage will be a hub for a shareable digital booklet compiling creative works, writing and reflections from our interdisciplinary collaborators showcasing the journey explored for education and inspiration.

The team aim to hold a university-based event showcasing Prosthetic Futures to diverse audiences, supporting University students, clinicians, academics, artists, and the general public to learn, network and spark new ideas. Local speakers across the arts, sciences and health will be invited to present their work connected to project themes alongside our interdisciplinary collaborators. The researchers hope the symposium will springboard towards developing a regional network sharing ideas, research, and developments for 3D reconstructive prosthetics