FRENCH PLACE is an art organisation and an incubator for critical contemporary practices. Operating as a proto–institution — situated between an art foundation and a gallery — we support experimentation, foster exchange, and offer time and space for collaboration.

Founded at 9 French Place, Shoreditch, London — FRENCH PLACE enters its next chapter in Milan, where our programme extends across exhibitions, an artist residency, and research–driven initiatives that support deep engagement with contemporary practice.

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ART-O-RAMA, Marseille

CECILIA MENTASTI

14.06.26—20.06.26

Cecilia Mentasti, Strawberry artwork, 2025, modified household appliances (fan, dehumidifier, air purifier, electric heater, water heater, ultrasonic aroma diffuser), plaster, strawberry scent environmental installation, courtesy the artist & FRENCH PLACE, © Francesco Paleari

With My Heart in Your Hand unfolds as a constellation of works by Cecilia Mentasti that explore intimacy, friendship, and artistic kinship within the context of the art fair, subtly destabilising its usual institutional and economic dynamics.

At the centre of the presentation is Strawberry Artwork, an installation composed of household appliances normally used to regulate domestic air—fans, purifiers, humidifiers, heaters—modified so that they emit the scent of strawberries. The work operates through a process the artist describes as *tuning*: a practice borrowed from automotive culture in which mass-produced objects are altered, both mechanically and aesthetically, in order to shift their function and meaning. Through this sentimental tuning, everyday devices become carriers of memory and atmosphere.

The presentation reflects on the presence of the other as a condition through which the work takes shape. In Strawberry Artwork, appliances are temporarily removed from a shared domestic space, implicating another inhabitant in the gesture of artistic transformation.

Alongside this installation, Sanfratello and Kit Festa further explore this relational dimension. In Sanfratello, the circulation of the work allows Giovanni Sanfratello—historically marginalised—to be recognised as an artist through the administrative act of exporting the artwork. The bureaucratic document thus becomes a gesture of restitution and care. Kit Festa, composed of confetti cut from a catalogue of Tano Festa, similarly disperses fragments of art history into a shared presence.

List of works