Site:Museo Archeologico Regionale Antonio Salinas, Palermo
Project:Polychroma Theatre
Date: 2025
Client(s):Fondazione BVLGARI
Partner(s): 3D Archeolab
In May 2025,Bvlgaripresented itsPolychroma High Jewellery collectionin Taormina through a large-scale cultural event that combined fashion, art, and technology. Among the installations created for the occasion wasPolychroma Theatre, an immersive artwork by visual artistGiuseppe Lo Schiavodeveloped in collaboration with Fondazione Bvlgari. The installation transformed a classical sculpture into a living surface of light, colour, and digital animation, creating a continuously evolving visual performance.
For this project, I collaborated with 3D Archeolab on the 3D printed replica ofthe Menade Farnese, a Roman sculpture originally discovered in the Baths of Caracalla and whose original is preserved today at the Antonino Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum in Palermo. The sculpture depicts a Maenad—an ecstatic follower of Dionysus—symbolising energy, movement, and ritual expression, themes that inspired the visual choreography of the installation.
The 3D survey was conducted usingphotogrammetrywith a Canon R8 full-frame camera, capturing a high-resolution dataset designed to accurately document the geometry and surface detail of the sculpture. Image alignment, dense point cloud generation, and mesh reconstruction were processed inAgisoft Metashape, producing a detailed 3D model suitable for archaeological visualization but also for 3D printing.
Based on this dataset,3D Archeolab produced a 3D printed replicaof the bust of the sculpture, which was used as the physical support for the artistic installation. The digital model thus served both as a documentation tool and as the foundation for the fabrication of the sculptural copy used in the immersive environment.
In Polychroma Theatre, the classical form of the Maenad was animated through digital projections, kinetic lighting, and immersive scenography, transforming the sculpture into the centre of a multimedia stage where classical heritage and contemporary digital art converged.
The installation was part of a broader multimedia experience developed for the event, which also included mixed-reality exploration through Apple Vision Pro and other digital storytelling initiatives connecting jewellery design, colour, and cultural heritage narratives.
This project demonstrates howphotogrammetry, 3D documentation and 3D printingcan support interdisciplinary collaborations between digital heritage, archaeological visualization, contemporary art and cultural events, allowing classical sculptures to become dynamic elements within immersive digital experiences.
Video of the artistic installationcan be seen here.