Monday Muse

Interview Vanessa Branson

Interview

Vanessa Branson

Photography

Cleo Leather

13 July 2026

Interview

Vanessa Branson

Photography

Cleo Leather

13 July 2026

Vanessa Branson has spent much of her life creating spaces that bring people, art and great conversation together. At El Fenn, the Marrakech hotel she co-founded and is Cultural Ambassador of, this instinct is visible in the contemporary art lining its walls and the creative community that has gathered there over the past two decades. This summer, the hotel’s spirit has travelled to Broadwick Soho, where Flute has become a temporary London outpost of El Fenn and a platform for the Moroccan creatives shaping the city today.

A British entrepreneur, philanthropist and cultural advocate, Branson began her career in the London art world. In 1986, she founded the Vanessa Devereux Gallery on Portobello Road, where she championed emerging talent and presented William Kentridge’s debut UK exhibition. Her relationship with Marrakech began a new chapter and is demonstrative of her ability to work with art to create new exciting cultural destinations – constantly turning her eye to incubating new artistic talent alongside best in class established artists. In 2005, she founded the Marrakech Biennale, North Africa’s only trilingual arts festival, bringing visual art into conversation with literature and film while creating an international platform for acclaimed and emerging Moroccan artists. In 2014, her contribution to Morocco’s cultural landscape was recognised with the royal distinction of Officer of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite.

An avid collector and champion of artists, Branson also worked in conjunction with Prue O’Day to co-found the Wonderful Fund Collection.

Through El Fenn, Branson continues to champion the artists and makers carrying Marrakech’s creative identity forward. The Wick caught up with her to discuss what gives a cultural destination its soul, the importance of approaching art with an open mind, what catches her eye in a new artist and why Van Gogh still sends her back to her paintbrushes.

THE WICK: What does a typical Monday look like for you?

Vanessa Branson: Monday is a less pressured start to the day than the rest of the week. I’m awake by 5.30am, an hour’s reading, then yoga, breakfast, and the Guardian quick crossword before a dog walk in Kensington Gardens. I’m at my desk by 10am to set the week’s agenda, check up on friends and family, and make a few calls. Lovely.

TW: You founded the Marrakech Biennale in 2005, helping establish one of the first major contemporary art biennials in North Africa. Looking back, what are you most proud of?

VB: Fast-forwarding Marrakech’s identity as a city of contemporary culture. Marrakech has extraordinary heritage, but no young creative wants to live in a medieval museum, a city has to keep making things, not just preserving them. The Biennale gave a generation of Moroccan artists, and the city itself, permission to be contemporary. That shift in confidence is what I’m proudest of.

TW: At a time when arts funding faces increasing pressure, what role should artists, cultural foundations and institutions play in shaping society?

VB: Artists have always been our early warning system; they ask the questions society hasn’t yet worked out how to phrase. That feels more important than ever right now. I’m on the board of the Autotelic Foundation, an organisation that supports the arena where the arts and AI meet, which is exactly one of those frontiers where we need artists in the room, not just technologists. I’ve a lot to learn!

“Artists have always been our early warning system; they ask the questions society hasn’t yet worked out how to phrase.”

Vanessa Branson

TW: Why do the arts matter now more than ever, and which is your favourite artwork you own?

VB: The arts matter because they demand something increasingly rare: an open mind. You can only truly appreciate a work of art if you approach it without your defences up, a terrific reminder to self, and to all of us, in an age of entrenched positions.

My favourite work I own is a painting by Paula Rego. My goodness, that woman was brave.

TW: Where do you go when you’re looking for cultural inspiration?

VB: 1-54 in Marrakech, the fair specialising in contemporary African art, is my favourite, always stories and joy. It never feels like a trade floor; it feels like a conversation you don’t want to leave.

The Wick Culture - Image courtesy of El Fenn and Broadwick Soho

TW: Is there a gallery, museum, or cultural destination you never tire of visiting in the UK?

VB: Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. It’s proof that you don’t need scale to have ambition, a jewel of a collection and beautifully hung.

TW: El Fenn has become one of the world’s great creative gathering places. What transforms a beautiful hotel into a true cultural destination?

VB: Heart. It was the heart of El Fenn that drove the Marrakech Biennale, not the other way round. So many artists, writers and filmmakers have passed through the doors over twenty years that their memory is embedded in the very fabric of the building, in the art on the walls, certainly, but also in the atmosphere. You can’t design that; you can only live it.

TW: This summer, you’ve brought the spirit of El Fenn to Broadwick Soho. What do you hope London takes away from Marrakech?

VB: Colour and joy, above all. This collaboration is a meeting of two deeply aligned hotels – both of us celebrate colour, creativity and a sense of fun, so it never felt like a stretch.

But I’d also love London to come away with a truer picture of Marrakech. It’s so much more than winding medina streets, djellabas and ancient souks; it’s a vibrant, youthful, entrepreneurial city where a new generation is reinterpreting centuries of tradition and artisanal craftsmanship in wonderfully contemporary ways. That’s the Marrakech we’ve brought to Flute, Broadwick Soho’s rooftop bar, which has become a little extension of El Fenn this summer with music, talks, dining, art. And the part that matters most to me: it’s a platform for emerging Moroccan artists, musicians and makers to share their work with a global audience.

TW: If you were hosting a dinner at Broadwick for six artists, alive and dead, who would they be?

VB: William Kentridge, Paula Rego, James Baldwin, Hassan Hajjaj, Laura Ford and Francis Bacon. Between them you’d have brilliance, mischief and moral courage.

TW: You’ve championed artists throughout your career. What is it that first catches your eye when you discover someone new?

VB: Something odd that needs a second look. If a work resolves itself instantly, I tend to keep walking. It’s the pieces that snag, that leave a question hanging that stay with me.

TW: Finally, who is your ultimate muse, and why?

VB: A bit obvious, I know, but Van Gogh. I can’t look at one of his paintings without wanting to pick up my own paintbrushes and surely that’s the ultimate test of a muse: not admiration, but the urge to make something yourself.