This June, the Grand Palais will present We Felt A Star Dying, an exhibition by Laure Prouvost. Trained in experimental video, Prouvost is known for her multimedia installations and films that focus on constructing layered narrative worlds.
In We Felt A Star Dying, she turns to quantum physics as a way of reconsidering how we understand reality. Moving beyond a Newtonian view of the world, the project asks what it might feel like to perceive reality through a quantum lens, where the world is read through possibility rather than certainty.
The exhibition grew out of two years of research with philosopher Tobias Rees and scientist Hartmut Neven, during which Prouvost explored quantum computing and used access to a quantum computer to generate imagery and sound shaped by the unpredictability of these systems.
At the centre of the installation is The Beginning, a monumental kinetic sculpture with six limbs that feels half machine and half organism. Around it, the video work is displayed in a shifting visual field, while the “Cute Bits” — meteorite-like forms suspended from the nave’s glass roof — reference the language of qubits and entanglement. Some take the form of helmets, enclosing sound and scent, while the tunnel-like entrance, glowing light and cushioned viewing area extend the work off of the screen, turning the Grand Palais into a space where visitors immerse themselves into Prouvost’s imagined cosmos.
Composed of video, sculpture, scent, sound and light, the installation offers an experience that questions the line between the material and the intangible. First shown in 2025 at Kraftwerk in Berlin, the project now takes on a new register inside the Grand Palais and will be on view from June 10 – July 26, 2026.
