The Quantum Turn: Art and Uncertainty in the International Year of Quantum ScienceBy Honor Harger29 June 2025 The strange logics of quantum
What draws me to quantum theory is not only the science itself, but precisely this – the way it alters the very conditions through which we perceive, construct, and navigate knowledge. It proposes a model of the world in which uncertainty is not a flaw, but a feature. It replaces fixed truths with shifting relationships and invites a way of thinking that allows for ambiguity, context and indeterminacy. I must admit, I find this difficult. The absence of stable meaning, the refusal of clear conclusions, is something I’ve had to learn to sit with. At times, I resist it. But engaging with that discomfort has been one of the most generative parts of my curatorial work. Learning to inhabit that discomfort may also have cultivated a kind of responsiveness, an ability to sit with multiplicity, that feels increasingly necessary in a complex world. It has also allowed for exhibitions and conversations to emerge that wouldn’t have been possible without that intellectual tension.
