Conservation

Factum Foundation’s Otto Lowe spent two weeks in the town of Al-Ula, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, teaching a group of fifteen locals how to record cultural heritage in 3D using photogrammetry. It was a collaborative pilot project between the Factum Foundation, Art Jameel, and the Royal Commission of Al-Ula (RCU), and generously funded by Jacob Rothschild. The course took place between the 30^thSeptember and 11^th October at the Shaden Resort, and involved a class of 10 women and 5 men.
Over a period of seven days, the students recorded at three different sites in the vicinity of Al-Ula. More than 74,000 images were recorded in this time period, with the entire project weighing a total of 1.29TB.

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In 2018, Adam Lowe and Carlos Bayod's Studio on Advanced Preservation Technology programme, at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP, Columbia University), was based on the application of non-contact digital recording systems within the frame of a fieldwork project: the documentation of the great Casa de Pilatos in Seville, Spain.

During a 3-day intensive trip in early October, the students carried out the recording of a selection of art and architecture elements throughout the building. The students had the opportunity to receive on-site training by scanning specialists from Factum Foundation, working in groups so as to obtain high-quality information on the current conservation state of the palace.

In December 2017, Factum Foundation funded and co-led a remarkable field trip in search of proof of a new type of dinosaur in one of the most inaccessible and dangerous places on earth: Pakistan’s western province of Balochistan. Generally off limits to the outside world because of its proximity to the Afghanistan conflict, and its homegrown insurgency seeking independence from Islamabad, this oil and gas-rich region is also a largely unexplored treasure-trove of prehistoric remains. Over the course of two days in December 2017, the team took thousands of terrestrial and aerial photos of the site. Learn more about the project here.

In May 2016, a team from Factum Foundation were joined by two Dagestani photographers, winners of the competition ‘Cultural Heritage 2.0’ and trainees at Factum Arte (Madrid), to record the tombstones at the mosque of Kala-Koreysh (Dagestan, Russia). The initiative stemmed from a collaboration between Factum Foundation and the Peri Ziyavudin Magomedov Charitable Foundation that aims to digitize the cultural heritage of Dagestan.

This video was made in Dagestan while digitizing local tombstones. Learn more about the project here.

In house textile conservator, Isabel Fernandez disassembles a lampshade in the collection of the Joaquín Sorolla´s house museum, which underwent a preventive conservation treatment. The silk fabric of the lampshade was digitized, digitally restored and printed as a facsimile.

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A combination of CNC milling and Canon Production Printing 3D printing has been used to produce the facsimile the tomb of Seti I. Most of the tomb has been carved into boards of polyurethane using CNC routing machines. The walls were routed into panels of approximately 1 x 2 m that are then joined together. Once complete, these panels were assembled to form complete rooms. The elevated printing technology of Canon Production Printing (previously Océ - A Canon Company), is a form of additive 3D printing. It can create full-colour, textured prints with a maximum size of 2.44 x 1.19 m and a height up to 5 mm.

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The preparation of an elastic printing media, or skins, was a direct response to practical need. Factum Arte’s flatbed digital printer can overprint in perfect register but it cannot print a detailed and focused image onto an undulating surface. A mixture of three different materials has been developed and is made as required and applied in layers. It is an ultrathin, flexible, slightly elastic material suitable for inkjet printing with pigmented ink.

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Factum Arte's Juan Carlos Arias demonstrates how moulds were made on the walls of the tomb of Seti I in the late XIX century in an attempt to preserve it.

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'Mindful Hands. Masterpieces of Illumination' opened its doors to the public at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in September 2016, on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. This large exhibition was a collaboration between the Fondazione Cini, Michele de Lucchi and Factum Arte. Included in the exhibition and filmed by Luke Tchalenko, Cuttings is a short film documenting all the stages of the reproduction of an illuminated manuscript: the traditional production of a parchment sheet, the making of colour pigments, decoration and bookbinding techniques, from the killing of the goat to the highly toxic oxidation of lead with vinegar fumes.

In May 2017, Factum Foundation and People’s Palace Projects collaborated with indigenous filmmaker Takuma Kuikuro in his effort to preserve the heritage of the village of Ipatse, which is located in the Xingu region of Mato Grosso in Brazil. The Foundation supported Kuikuro´s continuous effort in documenting the traditions and daily life in Ipatse.

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Short animation describing the forces threatening the preservation of cultural heritage and Factum Foundation´s efforts to respond to these menaces.

(From 1:18) Adam Lowe, director of Factum Arte and founder of Factum Foundation, talks about the paintstrokes on the walls of the burial chamber of Tutankhamun and how they relate to the evidence of hurried preparations after the king's untimely death.

From Secrets: Season 3 Episode 5 - Tut's Tomb (Smithsonian Channel, aired April 25th 2016)

More on Factum Foundation's work in the tomb of Tutankhamun

Watch the video by the Griffith Institute of Oxford University on the 3D printing of Tutankamun's tomb. Researchers from the University’s Griffith Institute for Egyptology and Adam Lowe, director of Factum Arte, talk about the cutting edge of conservation, and why it matters.

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Short documentary about the building of the Mejorada del Campo Cathedral, a project by Justo Gallego, comparing this building with the Cathedral of La Almudena in Madrid and the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

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Video describing the creation of the facsimile of the Tomb of Tutankhamun, which was installed in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor in 2014.

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Video about the process and protocol for creating a non-contact digital restoration of the heavily damaged frescoes of the early C11th Mozarabe Hermitage of San Baudelio in Spain. The Chapel was in a bad state of disrepair and an important part of the frescoes were stripped early in the C20th - the resulting pieces sold and dispersed across the world. The virtual restoration follows the process of interpreting and re-unifing the heavily damaged walls - we watch as the process is revealed. This approach is of great importance in terms of how we work with the past - It separates the act of restoration from that of preservation, creating a space in which art history, heritage management, forensic technologies and personal opinions can be discussed before they are imposed onto the original.

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Short film made for Felsinae Thesaurus to present the work being done on the facade of the Basilica di San Petronio, Bologna. It was projected on Piazza Maggiore Cinema the 13th and 29th of July 2013.

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3D Scanning San Petronio in Bologna, June 2013. In this time lapse video one can see the 3D scanner in action, trying to go around obstacles (scaffolding and other architectural elements) to scan from different angles to reach undercuts.

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