Photograph: Matt Crossick/PA Media Assignments | Clara Amfo unveils Art of London’s Step Into the French Riviera in London’s West End, a free immersive public art experience created in partnership with the Royal Academy of Arts

Step into the French Riviera at a new free immersive experience in the West End

by · Time Out London

After months of scorching temps and nights spent sleeping with a fan blowing in our faces, autumn has arrived – bringing with it wooly jumpers, rainy days in front of the telly and cosy cups of tea. Feeling the seasonal blues? A new immersive exhibition will give you back that summer holiday feeling. 

The Royal Academy of Arts has teamed up with TV host and radio broadcaster Clara Amfo (who also happens to be a Royal Academy Honorary Trustee) to launch Step Into the French Riviera. Inspired by the RA’s Painting the French Riviera exhibition, the new installation invites West Enders to literally step inside the landscape of the south of France – blue skies, rich foliage and gorgeous rolling hills included.

The larger-than-life artworks, which are dotted across the West End, are all immersive, using colour, sound and smell to bring the pictures to life and liven up grey and drizzly streets.

Photograph: Matt Crossick/PA Media AssignmentsVisitors at Art of London’s Step Into the French Riviera in London’s West End

The first installation – an interpretation of André Derain's ‘View of Collioure’, with sun-warmed scents and the sounds of the French coast at dusk – launched this week at Piccadilly Circus. Two further installations, inspired by Yves Klein's iconic ‘International Klein Blue’ and Raoul Dufy's ‘Golfe Juan’, are set to pop up across the West End this month. The immersive installations will be open until October 25.

Each installation has a QR code letting you unlock a French Riviera-inspired playlist curated by Clara Amfo herself. All we need now is a glass of rosé to make it really feel like an afternoon in L’Hexagone.

Did you see that you can climb Mount Everest in a new immersive experience coming to London – with the extreme cold and altitude?

Plus: Oxford Street’s 2026 Christmas lights are getting a magical Harry Potter makeover.

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