Swingers: The Art of Mini Golf
Information
Tickets:
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This event will take place throughout Battersea Arts Centre
Swingers: The Art of Mini Golf lands at Battersea Arts Centre. A playable art exhibition of rebellion and play for the curious, the competitive and anyone bold enough to swing outside the lines.
Play your way through nine adventurous mini golf holes, each designed by a leading female artist, exploring the game’s subversive history.
Artist, filmmaker and writer Miranda July (All Fours) goes ‘All Fores’ for the project. Kaylene Whiskey sets course with pop icons woven through Anangu culture. Tokyo’s Saeborg unleashes latex creatures of cartoonish menace, Delaine Le Bas squares the circle, and Natasha Tontey entwines speculative storytelling with mythology, technology, and alternative histories. Atlanta rapper BKTHERULA joins sound artist Kate Miller to make swamp flowers bloom. Australian duo Soda Jerk open an algorithmic K-hole, and prolific photographer Pat Brassington dives headfirst.
Only the most audacious artists are here because mini golf itself was born of rebellion. The game was originally invented by 19th century Scottish women who were banned from ‘real’ courses but refused to sit on the sidelines.
Pick your putter. It’s art that fills the cup.
A RISING Melbourne Exhibition. Commissioned by RISING.
Curator Grace Herbert
A Brief History of Mini Golf
Like many good things, mini golf owes its origins to women. In this case, a group of 19th-century Scottish women banned from playing golf because swinging sticks was considered ‘unladylike’. This rebellious group of women commissioned a 9-hole putting-only course named The Himalayas, after its uneven terrain. The course still sits alongside St Andrew’s Golf Course near Edinburgh today.
The smaller course demanded precision, and its rolling terrain added challenge, chance, and amusement. The popularity of the ‘Ladies Putting Club’ format grew rapidly, with new courses cropping up across the United Kingdom.
By Prohibition Era DIY mini golf courses had become a craze across the USA. Thousands of courses in New York and LA were built on rooftops, in backyards and on nature strips. Many were equipped with loudspeakers and were open 24 hours a day. Eventually, late-night curfews shut them down. Years later, mini golf played a role in the civil rights movement, with a course in Washington becoming one of the first public recreational facilities to be desegregated.
About RISING
RISING is an city-wide festival of new art, music, and performance, in the heart of Naarm/Melbourne.
Conceived by Co-Artistic Directors Gideon Obarzanek and Hannah Fox, it has been held annually since 2022, and is supported by the Victoria State Government.
Access
PRE EVENT INFORMATION
This event will take place in various spaces around the building. The ground floor has step-free access, and there is step-free access to the first floor via a lift.
This event will be Relaxed. We invite you to make yourself comfortable and move around if you need to. If you need to leave the space at any point, you will be allowed to return when you feel ready.