Sticking With Light came out of the Quantum Immersive Workshop, a two-week programme at Science Gallery Bangalore supported by the British Council. We were taught by and worked alongside physicists and researchers at the leading edge of quantum and particle physics through lectures and hands-on demonstrations, including a visit to see a quantum computer first-hand at QpiAI.
The programme deliberately mixed fields — architecture, psychology, physics, game art, writing, music — around a single brief: make something the public can absorb, and demystify quantum in the process. Each team was given the chance to exhibit at the end of the two weeks.
Our team — Rohit, Kharanshu, Nikhil and me, between us architects, a physicist and a quantum researcher — worked with light itself, the everyday property that is easiest to miss. Using mylar, birefringent material and diffusers, we split a beam into individual colours that shift depending on where you stand, which let us put our reading of superposition in front of people as something to look at rather than be told about. It leaves the audience a question they can test on each other: is what you see really what the person beside you sees?
We kept it hands-on. The counter held sheets, scissors and craft materials, so visitors could cut their own shapes, stick them to the treated surface and watch the light answer back. Projection mapping, 3D modelling and animation carried the rest of the piece across the panel screens. It pulled in every age group — children and adults both ended up elbow-deep in it — and that first-hand handling is what made the idea land.
Two of the four exhibits, ours among them, have since moved into a permanent space at Science Gallery Bangalore, running through the quantum season from 2026 into 2027.
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