Following acclaimed presentations in Melbourne and Brisbane, RISING’s playable exhibition The Art of Mini Golf arrives in London with nine artist-designed holes by leading women artists.
The Art of Mini Golf
17th June, 2026 – 26th July, 2026
Battersea Arts Centre
Lavender Hill
London SW11 5TN
This summer, Battersea Arts Centre becomes both gallery and golf course as The Art of Mini Golf receives its UK premiere from 17 June to 26 July 2026. Formerly known as Swingers, the exhibition arrives in London after its acclaimed debut at RISING Festival in Melbourne and a presentation at Brisbane Powerhouse in January 2026.
Part interactive contemporary art exhibition, part fully playable mini golf course, The Art of Mini Golf features nine golf-hole artworks by leading women artists from around the world. The project revisits the game’s quietly rebellious origins: mini golf was invented by 19th-century Scottish women who were barred from “real” courses but refused to remain politely on the sidelines. Here, that history is brought into the present through movement, play, humour and a sharp curatorial eye.
The works range from surreal video environments and fortune telling to pop-cultural tableaux, bodily slapstick and reimagined fairground games. Filmmaker and writer Miranda July presents Wave of Fortune, inspired by the 1970s amusement park ride Pirates of the Caribbean. Yankunytjatjara artist Kaylene Whiskey draws on childhood memories in Ananyi-Travelling, weaving pop icons through traditional Anangu culture. Japanese artist Saeborg turns the rules of play upside down in Animal Golf, inviting players to swap the traditional putter for a strap-on latex animal tail and use their bodies to complete the hole.
Algorithmic K-Holes and the Techno Serfdom of Simulated Entrapment Under Stop Capitalism,
Soda Jerk (2025). Commissioned by RISING Melbourne
Elsewhere, Turner Prize nominee Delaine Le Bas introduces a square ball in Square peg, round hole. NO!, while Minahasan artist Natasha Tontey folds speculative storytelling, mythology, technology and alternative histories into Hole for the Simian Crone. Atlanta rapper BKTHERULA collaborates with sound artist Kate Miller on Swamp Flower, where play makes flowers bloom. Australian experimental film duo Soda Jerk contribute Algorithmic K-Holes and the Techno-Serfdom of Simulated Entrapment Under Slop Capitalism, a hallucinatory video installation that fuses academic critique with the paranoid rhythms of conspiracy rants. Influential Hobart-based photo-media artist Pat Brassington looks to 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. A ninth hole will be newly commissioned for Battersea Arts Centre and designed by a UK artist, to be announced.
While the exhibition foregrounds the feminist roots of mini golf, its London setting gives the project an added charge. Battersea Arts Centre, formerly Battersea Town Hall, was a central meeting place for the campaign for women’s suffrage, frequented by Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst. The building remains associated with bold, progressive ideas, making it a fitting home for an exhibition that treats leisure as a site of resistance, imagination and collective pleasure.
Tarek Iskander, Artistic Director & CEO, Battersea Arts Centre said: “It’s such a pleasure to be working with RISING Melbourne to premiere The Art of Mini Golf in London. It’s a perfect marriage — the work celebrates mini golf’s rebellious feminist history, while BAC’s historic building was a vital meeting place for the suffragettes. This summer, audiences won’t just get to look at the artwork, they’ll play in it — and I think that’s going to catch people off guard in the best possible way.”
See also
‘Square peg, round hole. NO!’, Delaine Le Bas, (2025)
Commissioned by RISING Melbourne
The Art of Mini Golf at BAC is supported by House of Oz, a philanthropic organisation championing Australian creative arts on international stages and screens.
Hannah Fox, Artistic Director and CEO, RISING said: “RISING is about how we gather — through art, through shared experience, through ideas that shift our perspective. The Art of Mini Golf (formerly Swingers) began at RISING in Melbourne as a way of bringing audiences into the lesser-known, subversive history of mini golf reframed through the work of leading contemporary artists. It invites people not just to encounter the work, but to step inside it and uncover the histories it holds. The project has resonated strongly with audiences, and it’s great to see it continue its life beyond the festival, travelling from Naarm to Brisbane and now to London.”
Tickets are Pay What You Can from 17–21 June, with a recommended price of £15. From 24 June, tickets are priced £15–£25.
The Art of Mini Golf is on at Battersea Arts Centre from the 17th of June, 2026 until the 26th July, 2026
© 2026 Battersea Arts Centre, RISING Melbourne
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