Carmen: Public Screening at Battersea Arts Centre
View 'Carmen' (2025), a new film artwork by Dame Sonia Boyce OBE RA, made with support from Wandsworth Council as part of the Mayor of London’s London Borough of Culture initiative, at Battersea Arts Centre.
In ‘Carmen’ (2025), Sonia Boyce delves into the life and career of trailblazing Guyanese British actress Carmen Munroe, who reshaped perceptions of Caribbean migrants in the UK through her performances in such West End plays as Lorraine Hansberry’s ‘A Raisin in the Sun,’ and her roles on popular British television programs including ‘Doctor Who: The Enemy of the World’ (1967 – 1968), ‘The Persuaders’ (1971 – 1972) and ‘Desmond’s’ (1989 – 1994). Part portrait, part historical document, Boyce’s film traces Munroe’s impact as an artist and activist.
It has been one of my career highlights to have had the pleasure of working with the iconic, and simply fabulous, Carmen Munroe. I'm also incredibly proud and honoured to be a part of Wandsworth’s London Borough of Culture programme. The programme has been so joyful." Dame Sonia Boyce
Time: 9:30am – 5pm (on a loop)
Location: Waiting Room, Battersea Arts Centre, SW11 5TN
Need to Know
Carmen
About Sonia Boyce
Dame Sonia Boyce OBE RA is an interdisciplinary artist and academic working across film, drawing, photography, print, sound and installation. In 2022, she presented ‘Feeling Her Way’ for the British Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale in Italy, for which she was awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation.
Boyce came to prominence in the early 1980s as a key figure in the burgeoning British Black Arts Movement with figurative pastel drawings and photo collages that addressed issues of race and gender in Britain. Since the 1990s, Boyce has shifted significantly to embrace a social practice that invites improvisation, collaboration, movement, and sound with other people. Working across a range of media, Boyce’s practice today is focused on questions of artistic authorship and cultural difference.
[Image: Sonia Boyce in her studio, 2025. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth Photograph: Lily Bertand-Webb. © Sonia Boyce. All Rights Reserved, DACS/Artimage 2025]
