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For 'Delusions of Grandeur' (March 28 - October 26, 2025), one of Grayson Perry's largest shows in the UK and the largest contemporary art exhibition at the Wallace Collection, Factum Arte worked with the artist on the production of four new works: three tapestries (Swing Tapestry, The Story of My Life and Modern, Beautiful and Good) and a hand-tufted wool rug (Heaven's Gate).

More on Factum Arte's work with Grayson Perry

Image © Trustees of the Wallace Collection

From 2019 to 2021, Factum Arte worked with Paula Crown on the production of a bronze version of her celebrated ‘JOKESTER’ sculpture. Titled Resilience, it reinvents the crushed and compacted form of a Solo cup in a new medium.

After display at the Rockefeller Centre in 2023, Resilience was recently installed in the sculpture park at Paradox Cove in Austin, Texas.

More on the production of Resilience

The purity of sound of any bell is conditioned by the alloy and the perfect casting in a single pour of a copper and tin alloy. We just completed two bells for Jan Hendrix – they were cast in Spain and have not yet been tuned, but the sound is mesmerising as it fades away with subtle changes happening in the way the bell vibrates.

More about The London Bell Foundry

More about Jan Hendrix's work with Factum Arte

Paula Crown's bell, inspired by ceremonial Buddhist bells, is currently being cast in Spain. The artist's design features a series of messages in different languages, overlaid at different sizes and depths.

Among the great examples of ceremonial Buddhist bells from which Crown is inspired is the the vast bell at the Dazhong Monastery in Beijing: it is covered in the names of Buddha, which are metaphorically ‘recited’ every time the bell is rung. The Chinese bell weighs about 46 tons and stands 5.5 metres high, and was cast in 1420.

The bell is part of The London Bell Foundry's initiative to re-vitalise bellmaking in the UK, working with artists to demonstrate bells and bellmaking as a viable art form. The first bell was with Grayson Perry, whose generosity is now supporting the revival of bell casting.

In August 2024, Factum Arte recorded an iconic Japanese kabuto (samurai helmet), housed at the Royal Armoury in Madrid. This helmet was part of a diplomatic gift to King Philip II from the 1584 Tenshō Embassy and was badly damaged in a fire in 1884. Only the metal parts survived.

As part of a collaboration between Patrimonio Nacional and Ubisoft for the videogame Assassin's Creed Shadows, Factum Arte carried out a digital restoration to recreate how the kabuto might have looked when it was given to Philip II. Over the course of several months, using the few remaining visual records (such as a coloured drawing) and contemporary references from the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1573-1603), Factum Arte physically recreated the kabuto, reintegrating missing elements such as the eyes, forehead, hair and the lacquer colouring.

The reconstructed kabuto is on display at the Galería de las Colecciones Reales in Madrid until April 6, 2025, after which it will join the collection of the Royal Armoury when it reopens this summer.

More on the project

Adam Lowe, director of Factum Arte, is part of the team shortlisted for the Queen Elizabeth II Memorial competition. The project, organised by the UK government, aims to create a lasting tribute in St James’s Park, London, celebrating the late monarch’s life and service. Lowe’s team, led by landscape designer Tom Stuart-Smith, includes Jamie Fobert Architects and Structure Workshop.

Other finalists include leading studios such as Foster + Partners and Heatherwick Studio, each collaborating with artists, architects, and engineers to propose innovative designs. The memorial is envisioned as a reflective and accessible space, seamlessly integrating with the historic park. The final design is expected to be unveiled in 2026, marking what would have been Queen Elizabeth II’s 100th birthday.

A new set of works for Mat Collishaw has been a challenge. The AI-generated images in the Alluvion, inspired by 17th-century Dutch still life paintings, required a level of complexity that was difficult to transform into a Jacquard-woven textile.

Marcos Ludueña Segre, who has been working on the weave structures with Factum Arte since we started making tapestries in 2007, has achieved a remarkable result. Like the best tapestries, the image works from a distance and continues to hold your attention and transform as you get close to the surface.

The works are currently on show in his exhibition 'Vivisystem' at Galería Hilario Galguera (until 10 May 2025). The solo exhibition explores the term coined by Kevin Kelly 'to describe the phenomenon where machines increasingly mimic biological patterns, while human thought processes become more mechanised, creating a complex feedback loop'.

In 2022, Factum started to collaborate with the Spanish artist Paz Juristo to print a selection from her series El tiempo captura, inspired by William Shakespeare's use of flowers as a symbol of fragility and the passage of time. The photographs were printed onto Belgian Linen prepared with a flexible gesso surface.

The new group of prints are displayed without stretchers. The canvas becomes an intrinsic part of the image. An exhibition of ten new works was on show in February 2025 at the Fundación Carlos de Amberes in Madrid.

More on the project

Figure in Rods was commissioned by MICAS Malta and is the first public artwork by Raymond Pitré (1940-2024). The permanent installation at MICAS was completed a few weeks after the death of the artist. The sculpture is a testament to Pitré’s personal language and a confirmation of the important role he played in the artistic life of the island. The original maquette was recorded in 3D and colour in order to produce a public sculpture that expresses the complexity of culture on an island that has hosted so many cultures. The final work, cast in bronze and patinated steel, recreates the complex colours of the original plaster model. It now stands at the entrance to the new museum nestled in La Valletta’s spectacular fortifications. More on the process
Photo by Sean Mallia © MICAS