Golf Is a Violent Sport
Golf is a violent sport.
It is, if you look at it from the point of view of its landscape.
A territory is occupied, brutalized, and turned into its own postcard version.
Nature becomes an idealized landscape made to be conquered one hole at a time.
The act of golfing trains the colonial mind, the objectifying mind, the conquering mind.
In keeping with the theme of this year’s Terrain Biennial, “Keep in Touch”, this project is a cross-continental collaboration between artist Niccolò Moronato and Curator Erin Toale. Moronato is currently based in Italy and Toale in Chicago. As one of the founding principles of Terrain Exhibitions is free and accessible public art for the community, the interventions will consist of provocative yard signs placed in public spaces. Some will simply bear the statement “Golf is a violent sport” while others might delve into the more complicated concepts of landscape architecture (an anachronistic phrase), the toxic masculinity present in organized sports, and the legacy of colonialism as it plays out in land use such as that for private golf courses.