Laure Prouvost

We Felt A Star Dying

Everything begins with a vertiginous question: “What might we feel when perceiving reality from a quantum perspective?” 

Theorized a century ago, quantum physics describes the behavior of matter and energy at the scale of atoms and particles. It is based on probabilities rather than certainties and challenges our usual way of understanding the world. To develop this project, artist Laure Prouvost conducted two years of research with philosopher Tobias Rees and scientist Hartmut Neven. With access to a powerful quantum computer, she created images and sounds that reflect the sensitive and unpredictable nature of these systems. 

At the entrance to the exhibition, a tunnel leads into a dazzling environment inhabited by The Beginning, a monumental kinetic sculpture. Animated by sound and light and composed of six limbs, it is at once omnipresent and evanescent, imposing and fragile, cosmic and earthly. At its center, a video titled We Felt A Star Dying connects us to matter in all its forms - living and non-living, natural and mechanical, from the infinitely small to the infinitely large. 

Around it, whimsical meteorite-like elements, the Cute Bits (a pun on qubits, the units of quantum computing), are suspended from the glass roof and evoke the quantum phenomenon of entanglement, which links two particles instantaneously regardless of the distance between them. Some take the form of helmets, inside which one can hear their voices and smell their metallic, mineral scent. 

Spatialized sound, filaments brushing against bodies, dazzling spotlights, an enveloping cushion on which to lie down and watch the video, platforms and sandbanks all act as sensory stimuli, immersing visitors in this expanded environment. Laure Prouvost reveals an interconnected world in which “we are one,” where “we are we.”

This exhibition is adapted from WE FELT A STAR DYING, originally commissioned by LAS Art Foundation, Berlin, and co-commissioned by OGR Torino in 2025

Curatorship 

Curator: Barbara Kroher - Head of Exhibition Programming at the GrandPalaisRmn

Adjunct Curator : Carly Whitefield - Head of Programme at LAS Art Fundation