Life

Grade ll listed British telephone box turns into London’s smallest art gallery

An artist has opened and managed an art gallery inside a telephone box in central London.

Degard, the owner of the Visionary British Museum – sat in a telephone box outside the British Museum, has been longing for years to build a visionary community and develop the genre of it as an artistic practice.

As manning a gallery in central London is a huge challenge, where some galleries have gone bankrupt, the story of the Visionary British Museum begins when Degard saw a £30,000 telephone box on Rightmove.

“Despite the fact that the phone box is bijou and compact, it meant that I could start the conversation in a more physical way, which is very important.”

When she bought the telephone box and had the paperwork, she chuckled and said: “Obviously, lawyers looking at the paperwork for a telephone box said, ‘this is very unusual’.”

Since the Grade ll telephone box cannot be moved, the location has given Degard a perfect place to work with the British Museum which has a variety of visionary art displayed in the museum as well.

“The telephone box gives just enough space to describe the concepts that we are approaching.

“There’s a beauty to the fact that it is public furniture, people feel an ownership and there is no hesitancy to come in,” said Degard.

A security camera is also installed inside the telephone box, and Degard finds it fascinating to see people’s different reactions towards the exhibited artwork.

Watch the video below for more.

Feature image credit: Cathy Chen

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