Polarisation — while invisible to the eye — has been recognized as an important feature of light since the days of Ptolemy. Over the last decades we have gained significant control in shaping light, allowing us to design phase and polarisation structures in 2D and 3D, to explore the associated topologies, and their interaction with matter. Atomic state interferometers render atomic interaction sensitive to structured light, allowing us to imprint optical polarisation textures onto atomic spin structures in rubidium vapours, with promising applications in magnetometry and quantum sensing. When strongly focused, structured light is shaped into highly confined vectorial electromagnetic field distributions. As electric dipole transitions are sensitive to all three vector components, absorption images allow us to visualise 3D light configurations.