National WWI Museum and Memorial Will Exhibit Bespoke Bodies: The Design & Craft of Prosthetics

Bespoke Bodies: The Design & Craft of Prosthetics will be on view at The National WWI Museum and Memorial from June 8, 2023 to April 7, 2024. This major traveling exhibition explores the past, present, and future of prosthetic design. The exhibition features stories from professional athletes, veterans, children, and other users who collaborated with Prosthetists and designers to create prostheses with improved functionality, comfort, adaptability, and aesthetics.

Bespoke Bodies combines these experiences with contemporary and historical artifacts showcasing the innovations and impact of prosthetic design.The exhibition also features objects from the National WWI Museum and Memorial’s collection of artifacts from the Great War – a pivotal time in the field of prosthetics. The artifacts provide a unique historical context to explore urgent contemporary conversations around design and disability. Bespoke Bodies features close to 50 examples from around the world — spanning a prosthetic arm with a lego attachment to mind-controlled bionic limbs. Visitors will be invited to explore the evolution of prosthetic devices through visual stories, historical timelines, and videos. These stories demonstrate that when more perspectives of people who use prostheses are part of the creation process, the better the design.

Bespoke Bodies: The Design & Craft of Prosthetics premiered in 2018 at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. The National WWI Museum and Memorial will be its fifth location.

This exhibition is supported, in part by, an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Click here for more information about Bespoke Bodies.