English / Spanish
For 'Edge: Where the Land Meets the Sea', at Hastings Contemporary from 26 September 2026 to 3 January 2027, France Bourély presents Abyssal Armor, a sculpture that brings an almost invisible ocean organism to human scale, created in collaboration with Factum Arte.
For Abyssal Armor, her first sculpture, she recorded a single radiolarian in the electron microscope through an intuitive manual photogrammetric process. At just 140 microns across, the radiolarian is invisible to the human eye. Its silica skeleton, however, is an intricate piece of biological engineering, with precisely arranged pores that allow it to feed, regulate buoyancy and manipulate light.
Prize Amphora (2026) by Rachel Feinstein was produced at Factum Arte from a paper model supplied by the artist’s studio. It is a contemporary interpretation of a Greek amphora dating to around 363 BCE, attributed to the Painter of the Wedding Procession and now in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
The paper model was used to develop cutting files, with each element laser-cut from 1 mm-thick copper sheet. An elevated printer then printed the figures directly onto the copper before the pieces were assembled onto a 6 mm-thick copper structural framework.
The amphora-shaped base was digitally modelled in 3D, cast in a silicone mould using acrylic resin dyed throughout to resemble ceramic, and finished with copper foil.
The resulting sculpture combines digital modelling, laser-cutting, direct printing onto copper, hand assembly, mould-making, casting and copper foil, translating Feinstein’s paper model into a complex contemporary interpretation of the ancient amphora. Prize Amphora is now on display at Gagosian Athens until 9 January 2027.
Factum has worked with American artist Tschabalala Self for many years, and we worked closely with her to create this dynamic and positive sculpture.
In 2023, Factum Arte produced a maquette for Lady in Blue. It was shown in the National Gallery along with other proposals for the Fourth Plinth. Three years later, the figure has been transformed into a monumental sculpture more than five metres tall, unveiled in London’s Trafalgar Square on 10 September 2026. Lady in Blue is the 16th commission for the Mayor of London’s Fourth Plinth Programme, which has transformed an unoccupied plinth into one of the most prominent sites for contemporary art.
Tschabalala Self conceived Lady in Blue as a contemporary metropolitan woman. She is not a monarch, military leader or historic figure commemorated in bronze, but an everyday figure striding confidently through the city, animating the space around her.
On 12 September, Adam Lowe and Sol Costales took part in Hay Festival Segovia 2026, joining Sir Alex Ellis, British Ambassador to Spain, for a conversation titled Beauty: A Cultural Prejudice.
The discussion considered beauty not as a universal or objective value, but as something shaped by culture, history and systems of power. Drawing on Factum Foundation’s work in cultural heritage, Adam reflected on how ideas of beauty influence what societies choose to value, preserve and transmit — and on the role that recording technologies can play in challenging established hierarchies and enabling closer engagement with the material evidence of cultural objects. Watch the talk online
For the production of Emmaus, Jan Hendrix’s first bronze bell, the collaboration between the artist and Factum Arte brought together two complementary forms of knowledge: contemporary processes of design, fabrication and production developed by Factum Arte, and an artisanal practice rooted in centuries of experience in bell founding. The result connects a contemporary artwork with a technique deeply embedded in the material and acoustic history of bronze.
Factum Arte collaborated with master bell founder Abel Portilla, who continues a long family tradition of bell founding in Cantabria. For this project, the bell was made using artisanal processes passed down through generations, combining clay mould-making, wax modelling and bronze casting. Derived from the lost-wax casting process, this complex technique requires a unique mould to be produced for each individual bell.
Emmaus is currently on display at the exhibition 'Toledo+Hendrix' (11 September 2026–15 January 2027) at Galería de Arte Mexicano (GAM) in Mexico City. At the entrance, Hendrix’s monumental bronze bell is presented alongside Toledo’s ceramic La campana de Toledo (2007), highlighting the creative dialogue and complementary approaches that define the exhibition.
Adam Lowe has recently joined the Advisory Council of The Watermill Center, the internationally renowned interdisciplinary laboratory for the arts and humanities founded by visionary theatre director and visual artist Robert Wilson. Wilson's pioneering work over the past five decades has profoundly influenced contemporary theatre, opera and visual art. Bringing together leading artists, thinkers and cultural practitioners from around the world, the Council supports the Center's mission to foster experimentation, collaboration and new forms of artistic practice. Adam's appointment reflects Factum's long-standing commitment to interdisciplinary research and creative innovation across art, technology and cultural heritage.
The Dream Stone Suite (Chambers Suite 166) at the St Pancras Hotel is the first of twenty rooms forming Dreaming with Culture, a new project reimagining Sir George Gilbert Scott's Grade I* listed building. It is the visionary idea of Charlotte Skene Catling (Skene Catling de la Peña), who is working with Factum Arte and Factum Foundation to link manufacture to preservation, and luxury to knowledge.
Harry Handelsman, the owner of the St Pancras Hotel, and (with the Manhattan Loft Corporation) responsible for its renaissance since 2000, has commissioned this legacy project to bring the interiors back in line with the magnificent Gothic Revival exterior.
Designed by Charlotte Skene Catling, the first suite takes chinoiserie as its subject, tracing the style's journey from seventeenth-century trade and political complexity to the grand houses of Britain. Its wall coverings reproduce chinoiserie wallpaper recorded by Factum Foundation at Saltram House, Devon, a National Trust property. Three bespoke pieces of furniture – a four-poster bed, a wardrobe and a cocktail cabinet – translate historic lacquer work from Houghton Hall, Norfolk, recorded with the generosity of the Marquess and Marchioness of Cholmondeley. The artwork was reworked onto laser-cut brass panels using elevated printing techniques developed by Factum Arte in Madrid, and the furniture was built by cabinet makers Brights of Nettlebed. A bronze lantern, developed from nineteenth-century chinoiserie designs interpreted by Factum Arte, hangs from the ceiling.
William Klein is a great photographer who loved merging paint and image. The physicality of enamel paint on contact sheets characterises his later works. His only problem was that he couldn’t do it at the scale he wanted.
For a recent project with William Klein’s estate and David Grob, Factum Arte created a series of prints of his painted contact sheets at a scale that was not possible without Factum’s combination of high-resolution 3D recording and elevated printing that can replicate both their appearance and their material characteristics.
"The death of David Hockney, the person who did most to celebrate the iPad as a creative tool, has left a real gap. Hockney has been an artist who has always been there throughout my adult life. I remember seeing his paper-pulp pools in Covent Garden in 1985, his Polaroid works at the Photographers' Gallery, his Camera Lucida drawings at the National Portrait Gallery, his sets for Glyndebourne, and his recent environments. He was a star who shone in an age of celebrity." — Adam Lowe
Paula Crown's iPad drawings are cut from a different mould, but they share some of Hockney’s merging of the photographic register and a delicate descriptive line. They have material presence, and yet they declare their origins. Paradox Cove… An informal image of a remarkable work of art generated on an iPad but materialised using Factum’s innovative printing onto mirror-polished stainless steel with satin, matte and gloss finishes.
Artist Paula Crown joined Adam Lowe for a featured conversation at the 2026 Aspen Ideas Festival, where they examined how art, technology and cultural heritage intersect in the digital age. Their session, Inanimate Imagination, explored how objects preserve memory and meaning, and how emerging technologies—from high-resolution scanning to digital reproduction—are reshaping the ways cultural artifacts are documented, interpreted and shared.
The discussion reflected the pair's longstanding creative collaboration, drawing on Lowe's pioneering work in cultural preservation through Factum Arte and Crown's multidisciplinary artistic practice. Together, they highlighted the potential of technology not simply to replicate artworks, but to deepen public engagement with history, craftsmanship and collective memory.
© Copyright 2026 Factum Arte | Legal notice | Ts&Cs | Cookies policy | Privacy Policy
