Exploring a quantum perspective beneath the glass roof of the Grand Palais through the lens of Laure Prouvost

From June 10th to July 26th, 2026, French artist Laure Prouvost presents We Felt A Star Dying at the Grand Palais in Paris, turning the historic landmark into a sensory landscape informed by ideas from quantum physics. Blending video, sculpture, sound, scent, and light, the exhibition invites visitors to question how reality is perceived and experienced through a quantum lens.

Quantum mechanics and art meet in a monumental installation

The project grew out of two years of research conducted with philosopher Tobias Rees and scientist Hartmut Neven. Drawing on access to advanced quantum computing technologies, Prouvost developed a visual and sonic universe inspired by the elusive behavior of particles and atoms. The exhibition offers a compelling encounter between quantum mechanics and art, exploring uncertainty, interconnectedness, and perception through artistic form.

A sensory universe of light, sound, and entanglement

Visitors pass through a tunnel before entering a luminous environment anchored by The Beginning, a monumental six-limbed kinetic sculpture animated by light and sound. At the center of the exhibition, the video installation We Felt A Star Dying travels across scales of existence—from microscopic matter to distant galaxies, from living organisms to machines—suggesting a world bound by invisible connections.

Suspended beneath the Grand Palais glass roof, the playful Cute Bits resemble meteorites and take their name from quantum computing’s qubits. These sculptural forms evoke quantum entanglement, while some function as wearable helmets emitting voices and metallic aromas. Spatialized sound, tactile filaments, radiant beams of light, sculptural environments, and soft viewing platforms heighten the sensory experience, blurring distinctions between science, imagination, body, and space.

With We Felt A Star Dying, Prouvost gives physical form to complex scientific ideas, creating a poetic encounter where perception becomes fluid and everything appears connected through unseen forces.