Results Competition categories Eligibility Prizes Submission Requirements Timeline
2025 has been designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ 2025)—a global celebration of the discoveries, technologies, and ideas emerging from quantum physics. Throughout the year, the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP), together with task force partners across Canada, has been coordinating activities to showcase the impact of quantum science on research, innovation, and society.
As part of these celebrations, we invite you to participate in the CAP–IYQ 2025 “Quantum Arts” Competition, a Canada-wide showcase of creativity inspired by quantum themes. Artwork can be literal or abstract; scientific, humorous, or poetic. The goal is simply to explore how quantum ideas spark imagination.
Competition Results
We’re happy to announce that judging has concluded, and the winners of the competition have been decided!
1. Visual Arts
First Place Prize ($500): Julie Bélanger (Université de Sherbrooke)
Quantum Bloom
Quantum Science is a constantly growing field nourished by scientists such as physicists, engineers
and mathematicians all over the world.
It is composed of three major schemes: the foundation concepts (i.e. the roots) such as quantum
hardware and linear algebra, the core concepts (i.e. trunk) like quantum information, quantum
computation and software developments, and finally the numerous possible applications (i.e. the
branches). If you take a closer look, you will notice that each part of the tree is composed of
quantum lexicon related to the respective scheme. In principle, each terminology appears only
once; a word can appear many times since it can be used in a different expression. For instance,
the roots section contains: Josephson junction, orbit and ion trap. The trunk section contains among
others: Deutsch’s algorithm, Hamiltonian and tomography. Examples of words in the branches
section include quantum finance, DNA computing and cryptography.
Second Place Prize ($300): Sareen Sabra (University of Windsor)
Schrodinger’s Stereogram
Cross your eyes and focus on the image to reveal a hidden surprise. A stereogram is a two-dimensional image that creates the illusion of depth through binocular disparity, allowing a three-dimensional form to emerge only when viewed in a specific way. Just as in quantum systems, the noisy background suggests multiple possibilities coexisting simultaneously as we see in superposition and quantum mechanics’ probabilistic nature. Yet, beneath this apparent randomness lies hidden information, highly sensitive to how it is observed. When you uncross your eyes, the image collapses, but cross them just right, and the concealed pattern emerges, capturing the true essence of quantum mechanics. Finally, the choice of a dead cat as the background and a living cat as the depth image pays homage to Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment!
Third Place Prize ($200): Elham Zohari (University of Alberta)
Nanoscale Diamond Microdisk Resonator
This image shows nanoscale diamond microdisk resonator, a structure engineered to confine and control light for quantum technologies. While diamonds are most commonly associated with jewelry, they also possess exceptional properties at the quantum level. Embedded within the crystal lattice of this microdisk are nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers, atomic-scale defects formed when nitrogen atoms replace carbon. These defects can store and manipulate quantum information, making diamond a platform for quantum memory applications.
The microdisk is false-colored pink to reference the natural hue of pink diamonds, which arises from nitrogen-related defects in the crystal. This visual choice connects a familiar gemstone aesthetic to the same atomic features that enable quantum functionality. By highlighting this shared origin of color and information storage, the image bridges everyday intuition and advanced quantum science, inviting viewers to see diamonds not only as objects of beauty, but as engineered materials shaping the future of quantum technologies.
Honourable Mentions:
Ruvé Staneke (University of British Columbia)
This work explores the quantum navigation of the monarch butterfly (since it is likely that they rely on radical pairs through cryptochromes in their antennae and eyes to navigate the Earth’s magnetic field), and the intersection this has with human migration (specifically at the US/Mexico border)
Amelia Alcock-White, “Entanglement” (Vancouver Island, British Columbia)
Simultaneously abstract and hyperreal, the painting unfolds as an intricate field of intersecting water reflections, vibrating with depth and motion. Dramatic colour contrasts, stylized ellipses, and fragmented reflected forms converge into layered patterns that shimmer across the surface. These visual rhythms echo the physics of water’s elegant flow, capturing its constant state of transformation.Beyond representation, water becomes a visual metaphor for entangled particles and the fundamental interconnectedness of nature. As light fractures and recombines across the surface, its movement mirrors the phenomenon of quantum entanglement—separate elements bound together through unseen relationships, revealing unity within apparent chaos.
Hansima Keppetiyawa (Brock University)
This SEM image flips into a pixelated pond party! Accumulated Titanium Carbide MXene flakes bloom into leafy aquatic plants, while a long, layered flake struts through the scene as a goldfish, surrounded by smaller companions. The untouched silicon substrate resembles crystal-clear water, unveiling a peaceful world imagined at the nanoscale.
2. Performing Arts
First Place Prize ($500): Stefanos Kourtis (Université de Sherbrooke)
Windchime #13
Windchime #13 is inspired by the theory of quantum magnetism. “Snapshots” of a wavefunction modeling magnetically interacting electrons (Hubbard model) are taken during its time evolution and translated into a musical score.
Second Place Prize ($300): Graeme Dyck (quanTA – University of Saskatchewan)
Quantum Gates
An interactive audio installation that explored the logic of gate-based quantum computing through electronic music. Participants wandered through the soundscape created by a ring of four speakers and modulated it using buttons in the centre of the space. Each speaker corresponded to one qubit in a quantum computer model and produced sound according to the state of the qubit in the system, moving between musical sound (1) and textural noise (0). A pad labelled with quantum gate diagrams allowed users to apply gates to the system and hear its state change around them. With 16 different gates available and a faithful Hilbert space model of the 4-qubit system, participants could hear phenomena like entangled Bell states and build circuits such as Feynman’s 1986 quantum adder. Different operations and post-measurement states revealed varied musical textures that participants could explore while building a sonic intuition for quantum logic.
3. Literature
First Place Prize ($500): Cristian Ramirez Rodriguez (University of New Brunswick)
Pauli Matrices With Scaling Factors
The poem refers to the set of 2×2 matrices which can represent the polarization states of light. I wrote the poem in the Quantum Sensing and Ultracold matter lab in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada while thinking about my family in Venezuela and working on improving our atom interferometer through an evaporative cooling stage. The Pauli Matrices obey the relationship sigma_0 = I = -i*sigma_x * sigma_y * sigma_z ”
Second Place Prize ($300): Dr. Abiy Nedie (MacEwan University)
Superposition: For Those Who Dream in Probabilities
This pairing brings the reader into a world poised between certainty and possibility. In the image, a
lone figure stands at the threshold of a glowing portal, facing a spiraling cosmos that feels both
distant and intimately connected by thin, red threads of light. The figure becomes an observer
whose act of perception will crystallize their fate, echoing the poem’s meditation on superposition;
the space where reality hesitates, where every step is both taken and not yet taken. The warm light
behind them evokes the solidity of the known world, while the swirling galaxy ahead embodies
Hilbert space “ghost-selves,” a realm where identity softens into probability. This quiet contrast of
gold and deep blue amplifies the poem’s sense of shadow, branching paths, and truths waiting to
collapse into form. Together, image and text create an atmosphere of soft wonder; a gentle
invitation to inhabit uncertainty not as a fear, but a doorway into infinite potential.
Honourable Mention: Richard Germain, Pointe-des-Cascades, QC
Competition Categories
Participants may submit work in one of three categories:
1. Visual Arts
Examples: drawings, paintings, digital art, photography, sculpture, mixed media, cartoons.
2. Performing Arts
Examples: short films or videos, animation, dance, music, spoken word, performance recordings.
3. Literature
Examples: poetry, short stories, prose, microfiction.
(These are only examples — any format reasonably fitting the category is welcome.)
Eligibility
The competition is open to everyone in Canada.
To help the jury contextualize submissions, participants will be asked to indicate their status:
- High school student
- Undergraduate student
- Graduate student
- Postdoctoral / faculty / researcher
- General public / non-student
Student status does not affect eligibility or prize amounts.
Prizes
Each category will award:
- Prizes: up to $500
- Honourable Mentions: non-monetary recognition on CAP platforms
The jury may adjust awards based on the quality and number of submissions.
Submission Requirements
All submissions must be uploaded through the online web form. Participants will provide:
- Their artwork in an appropriate digital format
- A short description of the piece (max. 150 words)
- A disclosure of any AI tools used in the creation
- Name and participant status
All entries must be original work*.
*All “Quantum Arts” contest entries must be the participants’ original work. Use of AI must be identified. Each participant shall retain ownership of the copyright associated with the entries submitted. By submitting an entry, each participant grants the CAP a non-exclusive perpetual licence to use, reproduce, publish, modify, incorporate into other work, distribute and promote, in whole or in part, the materials submitted by the participant for any non-commercial or commercial purpose, in any format whatsoever, including print, digital publication and all other media, in any form, and with attribution where feasible.
Timeline
- Call opens: today
- Submission deadline: January 5, 2026
- Winners announced: following jury review
Help us wrap up IYQ 2025 with a bang
by showcasing the artistic side of Canada’s quantum community.
We can’t wait to see your creativity!