From October 9 2025 to January 8 2026, to mark the International Year of Quantum Physics, the exhibition " L'Atelier quantique : regards artistiques sur l'infiniment petit " presents works from artist Caroline Delétoille's residency at the Laboratoire Kastler-Brossel at the Collège de France. The exhibition is presented as part of Némo- Biennale internationale des arts numériques de la Région Île-de-France.
Quantum physics challenges our intuitions about reality and our ability to know it. Highly abstract, it describes objects ordinarily inaccessible to our senses, shaking up our imaginations. This exhibition offers a sensitive plunge into the infinitely small and its mysteries, at the heart of the Kastler-Brossel Laboratory, a major player in quantum physics research.
Instruments and historical documents are combined with works from artist Caroline Delétoille's residency at the laboratory. With a sense of humor, she explores their daily lives, revealing both the material and emotional dimensions of the construction of knowledge.
This subjective view also evokes the creative dimension shared by science and the arts, and the porosity between laboratory and workshop. The tour is enriched by a historical perspective tracing the major milestones in particle physics at the Collège de France, from Paul Langevin and Frédéric Joliot-Curie to the contemporary research of Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Serge Haroche and Jean Dalibard.
The project was the subject of a documentary, Sensation quantique, produced in 2025 by Unexpected Films/Bertrand Scalabre, directed by Louis Pierre-Lacouture and available on YouTube.
The Laboratoire Kastler-Brossel - LKB (École normale supérieure, Collège de France, Sorbonne Université, CNRS) is a major player in the field of quantum physics. Several of its teams and facilities are based at the Collège de France Physics Institute, which has a long history of research in high-energy physics.
