Swingers

The art of mini golf comes to Flinders Street Station. An exhibition of rebellion and play. For anyone who swings outside the lines.

Flinders Street Station becomes a holey new world with Swingers—The Art of Mini Golf, a playable art exhibition featuring nine mini golf holes and any number of untold obstacles.

Each hole is created by a female artist. Miranda July, the artist, filmmaker and writer who gave us the off-beat brilliance of All Fours goes ‘All Fores’ for the project. Kaylene Whiskey sets course, weaving pop icons through traditional Anangu culture. Tokyo’s Saeborg brings latex creatures with a cartoonish menace. Nabilah Nordin, now based in Los Angeles, returns home to Naarm, reimagining her signature playful and experimental sculptures with a putting twist. Delaine Le Bas squares the circle and Natasha Tontey entwines speculative storytelling through mythology, technology, and alternative histories. Atlanta rapper BKTHERULA collaborates with sound artist Kate Miller to make swamp flowers bloom. Australian experimental film duo Soda Jerk open an algorithmic K-hole. And prolific Hobart-based photographer and artist Pat Brassington goes in head first.

We’ve chosen only the most adventurous artists because mini golf’s radical roots go deep. The game was dreamed up by 19th-century Scottish women who were banned from the “real” courses but refused to sit on the sidelines. Over the centuries, it’s continued to be a game for rule breakers, from fuelling a putt-putt craze in prohibition-era Los Angeles (as late-night booze haunts), to being one of the first desegregated public spaces in the USA in the 1940s.

For Swingers—The Art of Mini Golf, RISING taps into the subversive history of mini golf with an art exhibition about rebellion and play. For anyone with a curious mind, a competitive edge, or who swings outside the lines.

Pick your putter. It’s art that fills the cup.