DERBY.- This summer Doug Fishbone will transform QUAD Gallery in Derby into a playful environment, taking visitors on an amusing and thought-provoking journey with an artist-designed mini-golf course.

The artists include: Turner Prize nominee, Yinka Shonibare MBE, John Akomfrah OBE, Hetain Patel, Yara El-Sherbini, Ellie Harrison, Candice Jacobs, Lindsay Seers, Eyal Weizman, Reactor and Doug Fishbone himself.

The Gallery installation uses the fun and accessible game of mini-golf as a powerful tool for questioning the leisure industry and society's compulsion for consumption whilst also addressing other important cultural topics from migration to global warming and globalisation.

The artwork was commissioned for the 56th Venice Biennale by EM15, a collective of arts organisations from the East Midlands, including QUAD, New Art Exchange, One Thoresby Street and Beacon Art Project with support from Nottingham Trent University and The University of Nottingham.

The exhibition follows on from Doug Fishbone and Friends: Adventureland Golf which was in QUAD for two weeks in September 2013. Over 2000 people came to see the artworks, which included golf holes designed by Jake and Dinos Chapman and David Shrigley. http://www.derbyquad.co.uk/exhibition/doug-fishbone-and-friends--adventureland-golf.aspx

QUAD Curator Peter Bonnell commented: “We are delighted to be bringing Doug Fishbone’s popular golf work back to QUAD. Mini-golf is an unusual but really enjoyable way to access art, fun for all the family and with some really thought-provoking content.”

Jonathan Jones, of the Guardian also says: “Doug Fishbone’s Leisure Land Golf is not just fun, it’s a critique of the leisure industry. A bit like Banksy’s Dismaland, but with shorter queues.”

Accompanying Doug Fishbone’s Leisure Land Golf will be a presentation of Sunscreen, an online project of 40 digital artworks in the form of downloadable screensavers which visitors to the Sunscreen website are invited to select and install onto their own work stations for free. Conceived by Candice Jacobs, Sunscreen explores the role of the internet in both work and leisure. It considers how our tastes, aspirations and value systems are controlled through consumerism. Each of the 40 Sunscreen artists has a connection to the East Midlands region. http://sun-screen.uk

Doug Fishbone’s Leisure Land Golf at QUAD is supported by Balls2Marketing. www.balls2marketing.co.uk Client strategy director Sarah Ball was on the volunteer team for Adventureland Golf, which was at QUAD in September 2013.
“There was so much laughter in the gallery. Lost balls, holes in one, and it didn’t matter what age the players were,” said Sarah.

“People naturally asked lots of questions about the exhibition as they complete the holes. That’s why when Peter told us the latest exhibition was coming to QUAD, we jumped at the chance to get more closely involved. The ballsy politics of Doug Fishbone’s exhibition fits perfectly with the way we work.”

Doug Fishbone’s Leisure Land Golf is on display in QUAD Gallery from Saturday 2nd July to Sunday 4th September 2016. The exhibition is free to view. To play the course, the cost is £2 per play, (£1.50 concessions) or £5 for families.