Sophie Cundale: The Near Room

About

Bonington Gallery is pleased to present The Near Room (2020), a new moving-image work by the artist Sophie Cundale (b.1987).

The Near Room is a supernatural melodrama about loss that follows the journey of a professional boxer after a near-fatal knockout. The boxer's disorientations become entangled with the story of a queen living with Cotard Delusion, a rare neurological condition inducing the belief in and sensation of death.

The film's title is taken from the boxer Muhammad Ali's description of a vivid, hallucinatory space he would enter when in the depths of a fight – "A door swung half open [into a room of] neon, orange and green lights blinking, bats blowing trumpets and alligators playing trombones, snakes screaming. Weird masks and actors' clothes hung on the wall, and if he stepped across the sill and reached for them, he knew that he was committing himself to his own destruction." – George Plimpton, Shadow Box (1977).

The boxing scenes were filmed at long established south London boxing club, Lynn AC in Camberwell. The cast includes professional boxer John Harding Jnr., artist Penny Goring, and actor Chris New.

The Near Room is commissioned and produced by Film and Video Umbrella with support from Arts Council England, South London Gallery, Bonington Gallery, Curator Space and The Gane Trust. The film premiered at South London Gallery in April 2020 and due to COVID-19 was extended until September 2020.

Sophie Cundale (b.1987) lives and works in London. Her work has previously been commissioned by the Serpentine Galleries and the South London Gallery; screened at Temporary Gallery, Cologne; Spike Island, Bristol; Govett-Brewster Gallery, New Zealand; Catalyst Arts and Amini festival, Belfast; VCD festival, Beijing and Innsbruck Biennale, Austria; and hosted on vdrome.org. Cundale's latest film The Near Room opened at South London Gallery in April 2020 and travels to Bonington Gallery, Nottingham in October 2020.

Please be aware that this film includes moments of violence and blood, as well as sexual references which some viewers may find offensive and unsuitable for children.

Running time: 32 mins.

Screening times (Mondays to Fridays):

10.10 am non subtitled
10.45 am subtitled
11.20 am non subtitled
11.55 am subtitled
12.30 pm non subtitled
1.05 pm subtitled
1.40 pm non subtitled
2.15 pm subtitled
2.40 pm non subtitled
3.15 pm subtitle
3.50 pm non subtitled
4.25 pm subtitled

Screening times (Saturdays):

11.10am non subtitled
11.45am subtitled
12.20pm non subtitled
1.55pm subtitled
2.30pm non subtitled