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A 10-minute documentary created by artist Prune Nourry, director Vincent Lorca and Google Arts & Culture uses generative AI to reimagine the studios of women sculptors who worked in Paris. It accompanies Nourry’s exhibition Visionaries, which opened at the Petit Palais on October 20, 2026, and runs through January 30, 2027.
A 10-minute documentary created by artist Prune Nourry, film director Vincent Lorca and Google Arts & Culture uses generative AI to reconstruct the studios of women sculptors who worked in Paris around the turn of the 20th century. The film accompanies Nourry’s exhibition Visionaries, which opened at the Petit Palais on October 20, placing artists whose work has received less attention in the history of art at the center of a public project.
The film draws on a year of research by three art historians, who gathered letters, journals and photographic portraits connected to women sculptors who lived and worked in Paris. Google says few historical photographs show the artists’ actual workspaces. Lynn Cherny, a creative technologist-in-residence at the Google Arts & Culture Lab, used the company’s generative AI and image-editing models to create visual interpretations of studios associated with artists including Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Jane Poupelet and Camille Claudel.
For one sequence, the team used a custom tool built with Google Gemini to make 3D models from archival photographs and animate camera paths through the reconstructed spaces. Another sequence, conceived by Nourry and Lorca, edits an archival image of Antoine Bourdelle’s studio so that female students gradually fade from view, leaving the men in the photograph. Google describes the scene as a visual way to represent how women artists were left out of historical accounts.
Visionaries presents monumental plaster portraits by Nourry honoring 18 historical women sculptors. The exhibition and the film installation are at the Petit Palais in Paris, with a behind-the-scenes trailer available online through Google Arts & Culture. The project combines physical artworks and digital reconstructions, but the recreated studios are AI-generated interpretations rather than surviving photographic records of the rooms.
Putting Women Sculptors Back in View
The project addresses a gap in how art history has recorded women’s work. Google’s account says women sculptors in late-19th- and early-20th-century Paris faced social constraints and limited access to artistic training, while women were often represented in art history as models or muses rather than artists. The exhibition’s portraits and the film’s studio sequences aim to make their creative labor more visible to visitors.
The reconstructions also show how AI can be used in a cultural project where source material is incomplete. By making historical spaces available for virtual viewing, the film offers an interpretive way to encounter studios that are poorly documented. Its value lies in connecting viewers with the archival research and the artists’ stories; the images should not be mistaken for verified photographs of the original interiors.
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From Archival Research to Exhibition
The project was developed in connection with Art Basel Paris and the opening of Visionaries at the Petit Palais. Nourry’s exhibition focuses on 18 historical female sculptors through new plaster portraits, while the film extends the presentation by imagining the environments in which several of the artists worked.
According to Google, the research team assembled documentary material including letters, journals and portraits before using digital tools to construct the studio scenes. The team’s approach reflects a practical limit of the historical record: photographs of the sculptors’ workspaces are scarce. The film therefore combines archival material with AI-generated imagery, rather than recovering complete visual documentation of the studios.
“Because few historical photos of their actual workspaces exist”
— Google, in its October 21, 2026 report
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Limits of the Recreated Studios
The source does not identify which specific archival photographs or written records informed each individual studio reconstruction, nor does it detail how the team checked particular visual features against the historical evidence. Since few images of the actual workspaces survive, the film’s interiors are AI-assisted interpretations, not confirmed depictions of every room as it appeared.
Google’s report also does not explain the extent to which the images were generated or edited by AI versus shaped manually by the artists and technologists. It describes the tools and overall process, but not a scene-by-scene account of the production. Further details about the film’s research methods and the evidence behind each reconstruction have not been provided in the source material.
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Exhibition Runs Through January
Visionaries is scheduled to remain at the Petit Palais through January 30, 2027, with the film installation shown in the museum galleries. Google Arts & Culture has also published a behind-the-scenes trailer online. The project’s next public milestone is the close of the exhibition; the announcement does not describe plans for a later tour or additional screenings.
Visitors and viewers can see the exhibition and film as a pairing of Nourry’s portraits and digital interpretations of historical studios. Any further account of how the reconstructions were produced, or whether more material about the featured sculptors will be released, remains subject to future updates from the museum, artist or Google Arts & Culture.
digital reconstruction software for museums
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Key Questions
What is the documentary about?
The 10-minute film uses AI-generated visualizations to recreate studios associated with women sculptors who lived and worked in Paris around the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Who made the film?
Artist Prune Nourry and film director Vincent Lorca collaborated with Google Arts & Culture. Google’s Lynn Cherny, a creative technologist-in-residence, worked on the digital reconstructions.
Are the studios shown in the film exact historical records?
No. Google says few photographs of the original workspaces exist. The film uses archival sources and AI tools to create interpretations of the studios, not verified photographic records of the rooms.
Where and when can visitors see Visionaries?
Visionaries is at the Petit Palais in Paris from October 20, 2026, through January 30, 2027. The film installation is presented in the museum galleries, and a behind-the-scenes trailer is online through Google Arts & Culture.
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