Mission: Mars

In October of 2019, the Elmhurst Art Museum had a call for artists for their upcoming Par Excellence: Redux exhibition. This exhibition payed homage to the original Par Excellence exhibition that was shown at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, IL in 1988. Like it’s predecessor, Par Excellence: Redux was envisioned to be a fully playable artist-designed 18-hole mini golf course. This iteration was curated by Colossal founder and editor-in-cheif Christopher Jobson.

Production

Seeing the call, I submitted a proposal for Mission: Mars. This golf hole gave players a chance to play on the surface of the planet Mars. The piece also featured several notable martian landmarks including Olympus Mons and the famous “face of mars” (aka the Cydonia region).

I was ecstatic when I learned that Mission:Mars was chosen as one of the 18 holes to be featured in Par Excellence: Redux. This was the first proposal piece that I was given the chance to bring to life. It was also represented many firsts for me creative-wise, mostly due to amount of wood-working that this project demanded.

Par Excellence: Redux was originally slated to be exhibited during the Summer of 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, this plan was scrapped. The exhibition was not canceled however and was latter divided into two shows: Par Excellence Redux: The Front 9 and Par Excellence Redux: The Back 9. Mission: Mars was ultimately chosen to be hole #6 in The Back 9 (October 13-January 2 2022) and was generously sponsored by my alma mater Elmhurst University.

Gameplay

Mission: Mars was set at a Par 3 and had three possible solutions of varying difficulty. The first (and hardest) was to attempt to hit the ball up Olympus Mons and into its caldera. The ball would then travel via an internal tunnel, exit on the left, and then hopefully roll straight into the end hole. The second solution is a simple diagonal straight shot. The third possible solution is to bounce the ball off of the “Face of Mars” directing the ball’s path into the end hole. Of the three options, the third option had the highest success rate for a hole-in-one.

In the Media

On October 14th 2022, I had the honor of being featured with Mission: Mars on WGN’s morning news segment Around Town with Ana Beleval.

 

Meet the Artists: Par Excellence Redux The Back 9 (Part 2) from Elmhurst Art Museum on Vimeo.

Featurette showcasing holes 5 through 9 of Par Excellence Redux: The Back 9. Mission: Mars segment begins at 1:00.

 

Acknowledgements

This project was a major undertaking and I would like to thank the following individuals who helped make this possible: