Rochester Cathedral will bring together sculpture, painting, film, sound, performance and public participation this summer for a contemporary art takeover – including a mini golf course in the gardens too.
Art takeover at Rochester Cathedral this summer – with mini-golf in the Cloister Gardens
Running from 1 to 29 August, Art on the Delta inside the country’s second oldest cathedral visitors are offered a physical antidote to digital exhaustion and screen fatigue and invited to move, listen, play, make and pause.
The exhibition brings together contemporary artists and creative organisations with strong links to Medway. Headline works include Matthew Darbyshire’s White on White, a 2.1 metre acoustic pod that amplifies visitors’ own sounds; Charlie Oscar Patterson’s UK debut of figurative oil paintings, shown across the Nave, Aisles and Quire; and Darrell Hawkins’ Head Space in the Nave, a large acrylic canvas inspired by historic graffiti on the Cathedral walls.
The Cloister Garth will be transformed into a mini golf course for visitors of all ages to bring play and other major works include Kat Pegler’s Flow (Brackish Beaming), a suspended six-metre deconstructed stained-glass window made from recycled acrylic offcuts; new impasto figurative paintings by Wolf Howard; Wendy Daws’ two-metre hanging sculpture Memories; and Zara Carpenter and Rikard Österlund’s
For the first week of August, the Nave will host More Than Human, a soft lounge cinema experience by Tom Dale Company and The Light Surgeons, brought by Ideas Test while Margherita Gramegna of 51zero Studio will screen Medway Superstars, a series of filmed portraits documenting artists and cultural workers across the region. , created from more than 1,200 images produced during a year-long residency.
And in the Cloister Garth, a mini golf course invites visitors of all ages to bring play into the garden heart of Rochester Cathedral.
Dahlia Westmoreland, Programme Manager, said:
“Art on the Delta has grown from Medway artists, conversations and input on all sides. It is about as organic as an exhibition can be, and it relies on secure, trusting relationships internally and externally.
“Medway has a beautiful collision of the sublime and the everyday, just like the Cathedral that serves it, and we want everyone to realise that world-class contemporary culture is right here already.”
Event details: Art on the Delta runs at Rochester Cathedral from 1 to 29 August 2026. Entry is free and no booking is required. Some activities are available on selected dates only; children must be accompanied by an adult. More here.
