The 20:45 to Lover’s Rest

The 20:45 to Lover's Rest

The Installation

The 20:45 to Lover’s Rest is an installation and performance piece dedicated to railway workers and passengers who suffered the loss of limbs whilst working and travelling on railways.

The work, a collaboration with artist James Kearney, prosthetist Chris Parsons and Uckfield Model Railway Club, features two constructed prosthetic limbs integrated into a model landscape.

As a miniature train travels between the limbs, the landscape – layered with mirrors, drops and facets – reflects the structures and people within, giving a surreal and industrial finish.

Both the limbs and topography show a mixture of organic and industrial elements highlighting the relationship between body, machine and the land.

The Film

Set to a musical score which plays with time and place, two passengers make eyes at each other as if at a station platform. The skies darken as they plug into prosthetic limbs which form the landscape between them and their journey begins.

The limbs act as terminals for a small locomotive passing from within the upper arm of a male passenger, ‘via Limbridge’ station, past a memorial relic (a severed forearm, paying homage to injured workers and passengers), before reaching the female passenger’s inner thigh and eventually docking into her shin, whereupon they both fall asleep.

This humorous, romantic and sensual piece highlights our need for connection, both to our surroundings and each other.

How the Project Began

The Alternative Limb Project was commissioned to create a train-themed limb for Head of Steam, Darlington Railway Museum. This was an exciting opportunity: in designer Sophie de Oliveira’s mind she could see a small locomotive travelling in and around a leg picking up both the scenery from inside and outside the limb.

As COVID-19 and lockdowns took hold, the project became a labour of love, developing into the two limbs and landscape seen in the final piece and film.

The work is a love story from one limb to another – touching on themes of romance, loss, connection, transhumanism and nostalgia.

Processes and Materials

1) Casting residual limbs (stumps) in plaster bandage

2) 3D scanning

3) 3D printing in nylon (the suspended arm)

4) Landscape carved and shaped in polystyrene and bandage

5) Creating form of limbs in plaster

6) Laminating leg socket and lower leg shell

7) Flocking the grass on landscape, bush and tree scaping

8) Sculpting silicone for realistic skin effect

9) Welding in mild steel (metal elements of prosthetics and viaduct)

10) Mirror sectioning landscape

11) Railway layout with electric connectors to limbs

12) Making platform, sign and station

Credits

Produced and directed by The Alternative Limb Project

Funded by Arts council England for Head of Steam – Darlington Railway Museum

Photography: Omkaar Kotedia

Filming: Freebirdfilm at Klatch Studios

Actors: Welly O’Brien, Daniel Richards

Music: Lila

Limbs:

Design and making – Sophie de Oliveira

Metal work – James Kearney

Limb fitting – prosthetist Chris Parsons

Landscape:

Design and making Sophie de Oliveira Barata with support from Dilly Childs

Support sourcing, layout design and making Keith Harcourt from Uckfield Model Railway Club

Smoke on loco – Rory Thompson

Base construction – Olivier Sauer

Viaduct – James Kearney