This summer, the UK premiere of RISING Melbourne exhibition The Art of Mini Golf will take over Battersea Arts Centre 17 June – 26 July. Formerly known as ‘Swingers’ this follows its acclaimed debut at RISING Festival in Melbourne and a presentation at Brisbane Powerhouse in January 2026. Both an interactive contemporary art exhibition and a playable mini golf course, The Art of Mini Golf features nine interactive golf hole artworks designed by leading woman artists from around the world.
The Art of Mini Golf explores the game’s subversive history – invented by 19th century Scottish women who were banned from ‘real’ courses but refused to sit on the sidelines. The exhibition invites audiences to experience contemporary art through movement and play. Works range from surreal video environments and fortune telling, to pop icons and playful reimagining’s of fairground games.
Works include filmmaker and writer Miranda July’s Wave of Fortune, inspired by the 1970’s amusement park ride Pirates of the Caribbean. Yankunytjatjara artist Kaylene Whiskey draws on her childhood, creating Ananyi-Travelling, which weaves pop icons through traditional Anangu culture. Japanese artist Saeborg’s piece Animal Golf invites players to swap a traditional putter for a strap-on latex animal tail and use their bodies to play. Turner Prize nominee Delaine Le Bas uses a square ball in Square peg, round hole. NO!. Minahasan artist Natasha Tontey entwines speculative storytelling through mythology, technology, and alternative histories with Hole for the Simian Crone. Atlanta rapper BKTHERULA collaborates with sound artist Kate Miller to make flowers bloom in Swamp Flower. Australian experimental film duo Soda Jerk’s Algorithmic K-Holes and the Techno-Serfdom of Simulated Entrapment Under Slop Capitalism involves a hallucinatory video installation that fuses academic critique with the paranoid rhythms of conspiracy rants. The Influential Hobart-based photo-media artist Pat Brassington references old fairground and parlour games in Faceoff. The exhibition was commissioned by RISING and curated by Australian artist Grace Herbert, Senior Creator at RISING Festival, Melbourne. The ninth hole will be a new commission especially for Battersea Arts Centre, designed by a UK artist, to be announced.
While the exhibition foregrounds the feminist roots of mini golf, its London home adds a further layer of significance. Battersea Arts Centre, formerly Battersea Town Hall, was a central meeting place for the campaign for women’s suffrage, frequented by Christabel and Emmiline Pankhurst and remains a building shaped by bold and progressive ideas. The Art of Mini Golf brings this history into the present, inviting audiences to explore a space where art, play and imagination meet.
The Art of Mini Golf at BAC is supported by House of Oz, a philanthropic powerhouse championing Australian creative arts on international stages and screens.
