Quantum Futures with Paul Summerfield

Questacon is an icon of the national capital, a science centre with the air of an educational theme park. Since the 1990’s swathes of Year 6 school students from all over the country have been making their first trip to Canberra as a rite of passage, and Questacon is the place they seem to remember the most fondly.

Gorman studio artist Paul Summerfield is a major contributor to Questacon’s latest installation ‘ Quantum Futures’, which carries on the same legacy of science and wonder that will no doubt impress upon the latest groups of school children who arrive through the doors.

We spoke to Paul about his involvement in this spectacular project where art and science collide.

How did you first become connected with this ‘Quantum Futures’ project?

Q: In mid-2025, I was invited to submit a tender for the chance to work with Questacon to create an exhibition about Quantum Technology in Australia in the next 10 – 15 years aimed at 10-12 years olds. The process of creating a tender application was daunting and a new experience for me. Luckily, I’ve got some very supportive people in my life who I can call upon to help out from time to time.

My amazing partner Lara (who is an excellent writer and collaborator) and I were able to shape the application into something to be proud of and after several rounds of interviews, I won the tender!

It’s a massive process, and as an applicant, you often spend many weeks or months wondering if you are going to be chosen and what you could or should do better next time. Luckily, I was chosen for the job.

The brief entailed creating illustrations for an animation that would be displayed on the big 14-metre screen on the ground floor of Gallery 8. I also designed and illustrated several inflatable-type flying machines, which the production team then produced as 3D Models. The 3D models were given to a company who created the custom inflatables that now hang in the space.

I created the textures/colour variations and symbols for the inflatables as well, and amazingly they look very similar to my original sketches. My first finished concept art looks amazingly similar to the end product.

The project imagines what a future Australia could look like with technological advancement – where did you draw inspiration for the imagery? 

Questacon had already done a lot of research into the topic and how they wanted to approach the project. I really had to hit the ground running after I was chosen to work with the in-house production team. I remember on my first day, I had a brief tour of the Deakin office and then straight into a meeting about how we were going to get the project completed in just a few months.

I had many deadlines for my parts of the project however the rest of Questacon’s production team spent many more months bringing all the different parts together.  But like all good things, the project needed to be completed just right and Quantum Tomorrow: Imagined Futures opened at the start of July, 2026.  

This is the first time that your drawing have become 3D objects and sculptures, how different was the process?

Yes, it’s the first time that my art has been used in this way. I have worked with light projections on buildings, large-scale vinyl murals, bus and car wraps and other large art installations. But seeing your illustrations brought to life as large inflatable sculptures hanging inside Questacon is on another level!

This project intersects art and science, with you working alongside physicists and many others to create the work – what was different about the process?

There are many scientists who work at Questacon and so using their own expertise, interviewing colleages and scientists who work in the fields of Quantumn Science and other areas. They were able to build up big resources of info, quotes and data. I was given some of this info and research to help me envisage the quantum tech and its uses in my own unique style.

What part do you love the most? And what do you hope people will take away from the Quantum Futures Project?

I have always been interested in astronomy and other sciences, but being able to work alongside the Questacon Team and actually go to the production studio/office at Deakin was really exciting to me. There were some challenges around working in a secure government environment, but it was an excellent experience, and I hope to work within the fed government space again, as I was really able to bring a creative flair to it.

I was given a lot of freedom to create and invent this imagined future. From my inflatable flying machines to creating an imaginative, believable illustrated world. Things like the GHZ burger shop and Drones R Us were all playful ideas I ran with and  I think I was able to capture a fun and whimsical near future in a unique cartoony style that really appeals to all ages, but especially to the 10-12 year old age bracket. 

I hope people seeing the exhibition feel inspired to study science, to explore the world and broaden their understanding of Quantum Science and the sciences in general. Questacon is filled to the brim of science information on almost any topic. So I hope the show inspires people to question, learn and explore the world around them.

Quantum Futures Project will remain on show until July 2027 at Questacon.

Images: Supplied

Artworks: Paul Summerfield

Words: Rebecca Worth