YQI AiR
Artist:
Martha W Lewis
Pop Up Exhibition:
February 4-5, 2025
Medium:
Hand-drawn portraits printed on metal panels
Location:
UNESCO Headquarters, Paris
"Thrilling. I get giddy when I think about going into the lab to visit the devices. The mysterious, cantankerous, beautiful fridges. Labors of love and sweat. It's an exotic situation for me to be in rooms full of shiny instruments, working away, packed with tiny experiment boxes nestled into their complex bellies, each one with its own preterences, quirks, history, and narrative. This is going away. At least in its current iteration. What I am attracted to here
now, is on the way out, fast. Blink. Gone."
- Martha Lewis
For the Opening Ceremony of the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, the UNESCO headquarters curated an exhibition alongside a series of talks. This interactive experience was designed to engage audiences and inspire a deeper appreciation for quantum technologies. The YQI AiR program sent Martha Lewis' notebook pencil drawings of dilution refrigerators, printed on aluminum sheet. The artwork shown here was part of the larger touring exhibition "The Quantum Revolution: Handcratted in New Haven which debuted in 2022.
Thank you to the Yale Quantum Institute for the financial support of this exhibit. The incredible freedom given to Florian allows him to establish ambitious programs like the Artist-in-Residence, launched in 2017, which Martha was the inaugural artist, culminating in projects like this one reaching far beyond the laboratories of Yale. This innovative project brings talented artists into the research laboratories to produce artworks in collaboration with quantum physicists. By exploring art as a medium and leveraging the intersectionality of science and the humanities, the program seeks to increase public understanding and discourse about quantum physics through the perspectives of the collaborative artists.
