Few sights are more quintessentially British than the iconic red telephone box. Designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in the 1920s, these cast-iron kiosks once stood on every street corner, symbolising communication, civic pride, and the reach of the British state. Today they are increasingly rare, often weathered and neglected, yet Britain’s knack for reinvention has given them new life: some serve as tiny cafés, florists, or community libraries, while others house defibrillators or even mobile phone repair shops. Each imaginative reuse celebrates the enduring charm of this nostalgic, adaptable icon of British culture.
It is fitting, then, that one of the boldest and most original reimagining’s of these kiosks can be found just outside one of the nation’s greatest cultural landmarks: the British Museum. Here, on Great Russell Street, four restored K6-design telephone boxes are now home to The Visionary British Museum, proudly billed as “London’s smallest art gallery.”
A Museum in a Phone Box
The Visionary British Museum is the brainchild of British artist Degard, known as the world’s first “Painter of Auras.” In 2021, she purchased her first Grade II listed kiosk at auction for £30,000 in cash, seizing the chance to create her own central London exhibition space. “I had long wanted a gallery in the heart of London,” she explained. “When I looked at the cheapest thing on the property list, it happened to be a phone box. It seemed an economic and fun way to gain a presence in the city.”
From that playful impulse, a serious cultural initiative has grown. What began as a single box has now expanded into four, each with its own theme: The Fortune Teller, The Aura Photo Booth, Visionary Brit Mirror, and Visionary Brit Exclusive. Together, they form a unique micro-museum that blends heritage, contemporary art, and spiritual exploration — attracting thousands of visitors every week who stop to peek inside, take photographs, and engage with the art.
Degard: Painter of Auras
To understand the Visionary British Museum, one must first understand Degard herself. Born in London, she did not begin painting until the age of 20, when a sudden moment of inspiration set her on an artistic path. Trained at Chelsea College of Art and the Royal College of Art, she has since exhibited internationally, from Muscat to New York, and is now pursuing a doctorate at the University of East London on “The Visionary in Art.”
Degard’s practice is rooted in her ability to see and paint human and environmental auras. She describes how, early in her journey, she noticed flashes of light and colour around people — once perceiving a blue square around a man’s chest, only to learn that he had just undergone bypass surgery. For her, such visions are not metaphor but lived reality: “They were his aura, his conscious energy. I could see the whole experience of his operation in his energies.”
This ability to channel unseen forces has guided her work ever since. Degard consults what she calls the Akashic Record, or universal mind, asking for the aura of a person, place, or object to be revealed to her in paint. Her canvases therefore become records of invisible dimensions, mapping the energies of individuals, historical figures, or even national icons such as Queen Elizabeth II, whose aura she painted for the Platinum Jubilee.
Visionary Art as Spiritual Art
Degard situates her work within a long lineage of Visionary Art — a genre that encompasses artists whose practices emerge from extraordinary or transcendent experiences. Figures such as William Blake, Hilma af Klint, and Kandinsky exemplify how spiritual encounters can be transformed into new artistic languages. For Degard, Visionary Art is inherently spiritual, revealing the deeper structures of reality and offering glimpses into the unseen.
Exhibitions at the Visionary British Museum have explored this in myriad ways. The inaugural Love show on Valentine’s Day 2022 featured works inspired by Saint Valentine’s healing miracles, Jim Dine’s iconic heart paintings, and LGBTQ love stories from antiquity to the present. Other shows have examined the aura of famous London landmarks, celebrated festivals like Hanukkah and Diwali, and brought together diverse artists — from Suzanne Treister’s techno-occult investigations to Melissa Alley’s trance-inspired paintings following personal tragedy.
Understanding Auras and Kirlian Photography
But what, exactly, is an aura? Across cultures and spiritual traditions, the aura is described as the subtle energy field that surrounds all living things — a luminous body that reflects physical health, emotional state, and spiritual presence. While mainstream science has remained cautious about these claims, many artists, healers, and mystics have treated the aura as a vital subject for exploration.
In the 20th century, the phenomenon gained attention through Kirlian photography, named after Semyon and Valentina Kirlian, who in 1939 discovered that placing objects on photographic plates connected to a high-voltage source produced glowing images. These corona discharges appeared to show the “life force” or energy of plants, animals, insects and human hands, captivating researchers, and the public alike. Although scientists have attempted to explain away these remarkable images in terms of moisture and conductivity, Kirlian photographs have inspired generations of Visionary artists to treat the aura as both a scientific and spiritual mystery — a bridge between the measurable and the metaphysical.
Degard’s aura paintings can be seen as a continuation of this lineage: not mechanical recordings but intuitive mappings, works of art that visualise consciousness itself.
London’s Smallest Art Gallery
What makes the Visionary British Museum remarkable is not only its subject matter but its setting. To step up to a red telephone box and peer inside is to experience a playful collision of the ordinary and the extraordinary. The everyday object of urban infrastructure becomes a portal into visionary realities. For tourists visiting the British Museum, the kiosk galleries have become an unexpected highlight, part of the ritual of photographing London itself.
The museum’s originality lies in this fusion: heritage preservation, contemporary art, public accessibility, and spiritual exploration. Exhibitions are free, visible 24/7, and impossible to ignore as you walk down Great Russell Street. They democratise art, placing it at eye level for anyone who pauses, and they invite conversation about subjects — auras, spirituality, the visionary — often marginalised by mainstream institutions.
The Fortune Teller and the Future
The latest expansion, dubbed the Visionary British Museum Takeover, adds new layers of interactivity. Chief among them is The Fortune Teller, a kiosk where visitors can purchase affordable art through a vending machine. Each piece doubles as a fortune, created by visionary artists such as Caro Halford, Caroline Way, and Dr Rupert Record. Tarot cards, lucky numbers, magic seals, and feminist mediumship all feature, turning the simple act of buying art into an encounter with mystery.
Nearby, the Aura Photo Booth allows visitors to capture images of their own aura or even adopt a celebrity aura, guided by Degard’s colour wheel. The Visionary Brit Mirror opens with an exploration of the Rosetta Stone’s aura, while the Exclusive kiosk hosts exhibitions spanning 5,000 years of visionary creativity.
In these playful yet profound spaces, art becomes more than visual pleasure — it becomes a medium of enchantment, healing, and discovery. As London continues to reinvent itself, the red telephone boxes on Great Russell Street stand as a symbol of continuity and change. Once tools of communication, they now serve as beacons of visionary imagination, proving that even the smallest gallery can hold the biggest questions about life, spirit, and the unseen.
