A First Look Inside vitruta, London’s New Art-Filled Concept Store

On 8 May, The Luster, a group exhibition featuring ten international artists, opens at vitruta King’s Cross, a newly launched concept store in London’s Coal Drops Yard. Led by Creative Director Serra Duran Paralı, the space is designed in collaboration with Paris-based architect Sofia Cherkaoui of SSStudio+212. Blurring the boundaries between retail, arts venue, and community hub, vitruta positions itself as a cultural platform – a creative meeting point where art, design, fashion and dialogue converge. With The Luster, this vision comes vividly to life.

Curated by art platform Display Fever, The Luster explores the complexities of digital presence and identity in an age where visibility has become currency. Drawing on Hito Steyerl’s seminal essay The Terror of Total Dasein: Economies of Presence, the show interrogates the pressure to perform online and the contradictions of our smooth, curated selves.

“Rather than presenting perfection, the works on display explore desire itself – not just as longing, but as a force shaped by memory and intimacy,” explains Naz Balkaya, founder of Display Fever and curator of the exhibition. “The Luster becomes a metaphor for contemporary desire: the cravings we pursue, the connections we seek, and the emotional textures that shape our relationships with objects, spaces, and one another.”

The store’s carefully composed interior – all exposed brick, steel beams and minimalist restraint – sets the stage for works that are both intimate and provocative. Each artist responds directly to vitruta’s spatial language, expanding its glossy surfaces and raw architecture into a dialogue about how we live and express ourselves now.

Featured artists include Faysal Altunbozar, Damaris Athene, Solanne Bernard, Paola Estrella, with garments by Gabrielle Venguer, Ela Kazdal, with sound by Iñaki Ramírez Romero, Lera Kelemen, Dilara Koz, Inés Miño Izquierdo, Naomi Boiko-Stapleton and Ella Yolande. Their work spans sculpture, painting, sound, textiles, and installation – with many pieces acting as site-specific interventions in the space.

Among the standouts: Solanne Bernard’s surreal ceramic hybrids of body and plant, Faysal Altunbozar’s playful sculptural bodies referencing pleasure and power, and Damaris Athene’s posthuman anatomical reimaginings. Meanwhile, Dilara Koz and Ela Kazdal investigate the distortion of visual media and the fragility of perception in a world saturated by images.

“We’re truly happy to host The Luster as the first exhibition at vitruta King’s Cross, in collaboration with Display Fever,” tells Creative Director, Paralı. “From the beginning, this space was imagined as more than a store – a site of exchange, where form, thought and emotion intersect. The Luster captures that idea without overstating it: intimate, tactile works set against the raw geometry of the space, each one asking the viewer to consider what we hold onto – and why.”

She adds, “There’s a quiet friction here between surface and depth, object and memory. That tension isn’t just aesthetic; it reflects how we move through the world now, caught between presence and distraction. This exhibition is a starting point, not a statement – an invitation for conversation between art, design and the rhythms of the community that surrounds us.”

The Luster is open to the public from 8–15 May at vitruta King’s Cross in Coal Drops Yard. During the opening night on 8 May, visitors can experience a performance by Paola Estrella, and a DJ set by Mikrosono Radio Gallery.



Feature image: Ella Yolande. Courtesy the artist and vitruta