Scanning the Past, Printing the Future: Exploring Workflows at the Nasher Museum

Last week, we found ourselves in the collections space at the Nasher Museum of Art, huddled over a Pre-Columbian figurine and a variety of lights, scanners, and photography equipment. Duke professor Pedro Lasch had pulled together a room full of technologists, museum professionals, artists, and professors to stage a live experiment, testing different ways of 3d scanning fragile artifacts. The room felt half workshop, half laboratory, with Julia McHugh, the Trent A. Carmichael Director of Academic Initiatives and Curator of Arts of the Americas, carefully handling the object while others adjusted lights and cameras to record its every detail. The task wasn’t just technical — it was part of a story about how artists, technologists, and museums can find new ways to work with objects that are increasingly difficult to access.

Pedro’s practice often incorporates reproductions of historical objects. In past projects, he was able to work directly with museum pieces, but that access is becoming more limited. The scans we captured that day will allow him to continue producing his work, including the ongoing Black Mirror series, without relying on fragile originals. He spoke about his admiration for Factum Arte, a group devoted to recording and re-creating cultural heritage, and how their work illustrates the possibilities of using technology to both protect and extend the life of objects while sparking new artistic directions.

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Around the table, three different scanning approaches were put to the test. Mark Olson, who has helped the Nasher with these technologies for some years, set up a blue light scanner to capture surface topography. Ed Triplett worked through the slow and meticulous process of DSLR photogrammetry, snapping image after image to be stitched together into a model. Meanwhile, Peter Katz experimented with iPhone scanning, aided by LiDAR and ring lighting, to see how far handheld and portable tools have come. Each method carried tradeoffs in speed, resolution, and portability. For the Co-Lab, it was a chance not just to learn how these tools perform but to think ahead about how we could help Pedro transform scans into tangible reproductions. We are equally excited about how 3D printing and other fabrication techniques, as well as painting and finishing can bring inaccessible artifacts into the hands of learners and artists.

As the day went on, conversation circled back to an important idea: these were not replicas meant to deceive, but facsimiles. The value was in carrying the presence and shape of the original into new contexts. Some prints might deliberately emphasize their difference, while others could be finished in ways that evoke the patina of age. In either case, the facsimile becomes its own statement — related to the original but never pretending to replace it.

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By the end of the session, the small effigy we scanned looked promising enough to move toward test prints. More sessions are planned, including strategies for stabilizing larger pieces so they can be scanned fully. For the Co-Lab, this is exactly the kind of project we thrive in: a blend of experimentation, art, and technology, where curiosity drives us to learn new workflows and test unfamiliar tools. As these efforts expand, we’re eager to continue exploring how cultural heritage can be connected with new technologies — and how fabrication methods can push far beyond their usual role in engineering or STEM into the realm of art and history.