Founded by art historian and designer Stéphanie Ruth in London in 2022, PARLOUR began as an intimate salon-gallery in her home before evolving into something more peripatetic: a nomadic curatorial studio that transforms extraordinary spaces into temporary galleries. Each exhibition unfolds as a dialogue between artworks and their settings, where modern and contemporary art and design tell stories in combination with architectural details and personal histories. PARLOUR engages with a broader, multidisciplinary inquiry into more contemplative, sensory ways of experiencing art and interacting with our surroundings.

The immersion into the familiar moods of the domestic space aims to re-sensualise the experience of viewing art as an alternative to the growing mundanity of the white cube. The home is the staging of everyday life and rituals; it serves as a container for experience, memories and dreams and becomes an extension of its occupants. Stéphanie Ruth 's vision is to employ the domestic space as a medium in which to tell stories through the existing narratives within the exhibited artworks and objects. Each artwork has two lives. The first life exists in and of itself, the second life exists in relationship to other works, to the space and the beholder.