Hayes Valley Historic Miniature Golf Extravaganza
Public Art, Temporary + Social Practice
San Francisco, CA • 2007
The Hayes Valley Historic Miniature Golf Extravaganza was an interpretation of the cultural and physical geography of a San Francisco neighborhood in the form of a participatory game accessible to all ages. Playing the nine-hole course told the story of layers of opportunism, related spectacle and struggle, redeemed by recent neighborhood activism leading to the social and economic revitalization of a thriving community. The project was intended to be at once educational, challenging and fun.
We view Hayes Valley as a microcosm of San Francisco, and its neighborhood history as representative of past and present settlement patterns inherent in Westward expansion. Hayes Valley is a contemporary frontier within a frontier city, and the HVHMGE was the public art equivalent of a cinematic Western.
The course traveled through 10,000 years of history, with a recurring theme of sand, the geological substrate upon which the neighborhood is built.
Commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission