Circassian Beauty

Golf holes by artists: Lindsay Seers, John Akomfrah, Ellie Harrison, Candice Jacobs, Hetain Patel, Yara El-Sherbini, Yinka Shonibare, Eyal Weizman and Doug Fishbone.

Lindsay Seers’ golf hole for Venice features a figurehead upside down and pregnant being attacked by two enormous snakes. The figure is Princess Salme (b.1844), daughter of a Circassian concubine in the Sultan of Zanzibar's harem. Circassian women were considered, at this time, to be the most beautiful women in the world, hence they were highly prized as wives. The beauty and character of her mother gave Salme a strong postion in the family and levels of freesom which she expresses clearly in her autobiography deriding western notions of the constraints of eastern women. But Salme became pregnant by a German merchant and awating her fate under house arrest she was consequently smuggled out of Africa by a British sea captain to Europe (1866). During her life in Europe Salme (who became Emily Ruete) was used as a pawn by both the British and German's in the carving up of East Africa.

The golf ball's journey up a steep ramp, over a painting of an anamorphic British naval captain, winds its way through the snake’s entangled bodies. When the red ball is finally spat out, it bounces off a rock painted with an image of a 'Circassian Beauty' (from PT Barnum's freak show). You should be able to score a hole in one – you may win, but at what price?