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Malmö: Using skateboarding to transform your hometown

Simon Bernacki frontside wallrides the TBS DIY. Photo: Tim Smith.

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For skateboarders in the Northern Hemisphere, the start of the year can feel like the end of the world. An existential and meteorological downward spiral, deepened if you spent last summer somewhere markedly better. But then trips are excitedly planned across chaotically duplicate social media platforms through April and May; a glut of adventure from June to early September; then the stomach-tightening disappointment as nights lengthen and tarmac dampens. The cyclical woe ramped right up in 2016. Brexit’s ‘fuck you, footloose citizen of the world’ followed by the fever dream turned reality of President Donald J Trump make escape more necessary than desirable.

What if, in 2017, we took something back from our travels, improving our hometown environments, the rest of our active lives and the lives of younger generations? Last summer, my friends and I visited Copenhagen and Malmö for the third time. This year, it would be nice to reduce the contrast between away and home. Fortunately, the relatively small Swedish city provides a lodestar for UK skate scenes demoralised by generational churn and municipal hostility. Most impressively, Malmö’s skaters have demonstrated what we already know to be true: skateboarding is an incredible tool for creating and maintaining active and engaging public spaces, a free spectacle for participants and bystanders, encouraging a sense of shared-ownership over the city and its public realm. Politicians in the UK invest millions trying to ‘engage’ young people, to encourage a sense of community, to increase physical activity, and to bridge the generational divide – skateboarding does all this for free.

Zombie Stu getting some at Steppeside DIY. Photo: Simon Bernacki.

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Malmö is a modern skateboarding phenomenon. The 2016 final of the Vans Pro Skatepark Series was not hosted in sun-kissed California, but in a frequently rainy upper corner of northern Europe. The city features in videos from sportswear giants, ordinary Joe’s and several documentaries (with a school within the indoor skatepark attracting particular interest) and is, of course, headquarters to Polar Skateboards. Copenhagen, over the bridge, attracts attention for similar reasons: huge, well-designed public skateparks, indoor parks and global events; flourishing DIY scenes; rippers attracting the biggest of sponsors; and energetic cadres of long-time skaters who have convinced their local authority of the wider benefits of all of this.

Malmö is a more unlikely story than the Danish capital. It’s much smaller – similar in size to Nottingham. It also experienced the sharp-end of de-industrialisation and the fragility of neo-liberal redevelopment. Just as Nottingham lost thousands of skilled blue collar jobs with the fall of textiles and heavy industry in the 1970s and 1980s, Malmö’s largest employer, shipbuilding, went into free fall. Both cities looked to the financial and business services for a ‘knowledge led’ recovery. This proved just as vulnerable to global headwinds, as Malmö was particularly hard hit by the Swedish Financial Crisis of the early 1990s. A visitor from the North of England in the mid-1990s would have observed familiar symptoms of urban blight.

Now, five years after the Occupy Movement and nine years after the Global Financial Crisis, Malmö is an optimist’s poster child for intelligent and inclusive regeneration. And, would you believe it, skateboarding has played an important role. Malmö’s development (aided by small things like building a university and a bridge to Copenhagen) is due to more than skateboarding, but when investment ran in, the local skaters were already at a sprinting start. With nowhere in winter other than an indoor carpark, they formed a club. As membership grew, the City took notice and provided an abandoned school for a mini-ramp, and then the much larger former brewery site for an indoor park, and the non-profit Bryggeriet was born. Competitions built capacity such that, when the Council agreed to support a ‘destination’ skatepark to spearhead the regeneration of the old ship-building area, Bryggeriet worked with a team from Portland to ensure user expertise nibbled into the marrow of the project. The result was the incredible Stapelbäddsparken, which drew Quicksilver to relocate the Bowlriders European Cup in 2006. By this time, Pontus Alv had released his first video, ‘Strongest of the Strange’, broadcasting to the world that parks and events were the tip of an iceberg that encased a street and DIY scene, which in turn helped kickstart the global proliferation of the ‘crete-and-hope’ ethos, as well as the verb “to charge”.

The wonderful Stappelbadsparken park shot by Andrew Cullen.

Stappelbadsparken_Andrew_Cullen

When Quicksilver withdrew from skateboarding, Bryggeriet together with the City took over. Malmö’s annual Ultrabowl was given a budget to: “put Malmö on the map, and help develop a relationship with the skaters for other projects.” Even more incredibly, the Council considers skateboarding within its strategy to ensure public spaces are well used, and co-brands Skate Malmö with the skaters. Among other things, Skate Malmö officially encourages skateboarders to visit the city, something that eluded Philadelphia in Love Park’s heyday as a global skate magnet.

Forensic skate archivists will trace much of the above to Phil Evans’ ‘Coping Mechanism’ and recent interviews with Gustav Edén, one time Unabomber rider and now Skateboard Coordinator for the City of Malmö. Gustav was generous with his scarce time and responded to our questions, exploring factors that may enable British skaters to have the confidence and sense of agency to act on Malmö’s inspiration.

The foremost questions are: can lessons from Malmö be applied in the UK? Is hard work and a can-do attitude more important than the serendipity of living in progressive Sweden? Malmö City did not always regard skateboarding so favourably, once seeing it in similar terms to many UK Local Authorities: a ‘nuisance’; young men making noise and wasting time. Gustav argues that Malmö’s skaters’ attitude and ambition were as important in changing perceptions as the successful hosting of global events: “the City supported the development of the skate-organisation and helped it grow. The City gave skaters a chance. That’s half the story. Perhaps more crucial… is that the skaters here realised they had to be a good partner to the City. They realised they had to give the city value for their investment.”

Our experience in the UK is often characterised by Local Government hostility (in Kettering, Norwich, Birmingham, Sheffield and other towns and cities where bans have existed for years or have recently been implemented). However, we have to be honest and admit to often choosing a passive role. We lobby councils to pay for skateparks; we launch online petitions to fight bylaws and save skatespots. Rarely do we tell the town hall what we will do in return… and then go out and deliver it. Though successful skater-led UK campaigns often argue that skateparks may reduce anti-social behaviour, or increase physical activity – little is usually done to ensure that “may” becomes “will.” There are many brilliant exceptions, such as Frontside Gardens, the work of John Cattle and Wight Trash, Ash Hall and Sheffield’s Skateboard School, and, of course, Long Live Southbank.

I’m generalising, but the point stands and Gustav concurs: “Skate organisations often (not always) forget to shift the focus to what they can do for the city and how this can help them grow, rather than just thinking about what the city can do for them. The skaters in Malmö have been a strong, driven partner for the city. For a community development department, this is a godsend. Someone wanting to do something and actually being able to deliver. That is a crucial part of the Malmö story.”

A common fear is that officialdom inevitably ruins the cool of skating, wrecking the credibility of skaters amongst their own communities. We are currently struggling with this trade-off in Nottingham. I found myself farcically misquoted in our local newspaper, “jump up” instead of “kicker”, alongside the depressing old chestnut placing street skating within the gamut of anti-social behaviour – when skateboarding is the most supportively ‘social’ thing in most of our lives. In skateparks we socialise with people exactly like us, rather than negotiating space with other users of the city. If 2016’s tale of political and social upset is one of old against young and the educated against the left-behind, actually sharing space and interacting with different kinds of people is more important than it’s ever been.

Notts crew at Steppeside. Photo: Andrew Cullen.

R0...6493 - Rod/Andrew Cullen: Zombie Stu and the Notts crew at Steppeside;

Malmö’s skaters learned that hosting events ordinary people could appreciate and engaging with the public via skate schools actually benefited the core scene: “The idea from Bryggeriet has always been to deliver above the expectations of the City, as well as staying true to the skate scene.” Perhaps it’s the Scandinavian tendency to approach even the most casual thing with an enviable mix of extreme seriousness and whimsy, but the proof is in the pudding. Malmö has one of the corest, most aesthetically fucking cool scenes on earth – not just the best known company, Polar, but also Post, Hats, Details, Poetic Collective and the visual output of Bryggeriet and Skate Malmö themselves (helped by master-videographers-in-residence like Phil Evans). The skaters have managed to nurture a successful, expansive and civically-minded ‘skate destination’ and grow a cool-as-all-hell sub-culture. Gustav described global events like the Vans final as “the result, not the instigator” of this year-long scene.

This has wider impacts for the arts and youth culture. We spoke to Street Lab skateshop big-popper Rasmus Sjölin, who told us a little about the social buzz the Malmö skate scene produces. Even relatively little things like a DIY build at the famous TBS spot can end in a street party spilling from the bar round the corner from Street Lab, whilst local hotels, shops and venues all recognise the benefits visiting skaters bring. Gustav added that the type of person attracted to the characteristics of skating (not a team sport, unstructured, intergenerational) can have a genuinely life-changing experience that leads to connected interests and skills from “a network that permeates every walk of life in the city.” And for older people already sold hook-line-and-sinker, the rich skate scene attracts them and their families to move to the city – bringing their skills, interests and creative ideas. The OG street spot now on my ‘favourite on earth’ list after several afternoons this summer, known as ‘Svampen’ by the locals, is overlooked by Malmö Art Centre, directly illustrating these permeations.

Malmö Harbour. Photo: Simon Bernacki.

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As a counter-balance to encroaching ‘sportification’ from the Olympics and the sportswear brands, Malmö’s skaters have ensured that their events emphasise the cultural crossovers of skating, with Ultrabowl and the Vans championship being closer to city-wide music or art festivals, rather than singularly big corporate events. The Malmö scene has also helped pioneer the greatest antidote to dumb-ass, alpha males: as many women and girls are encouraged to skate as possible, and then those who get good are supported – just as you would with male skaters. Recent upstart brand Poetic Collective proudly support Sarah Meurle front and centre in their team: in the UK only Lovenskate have the guts to strongly back (fellow Kalis obsessive) Lucy Adams. And power to them: it’s (early) 2017 people – the 1950s live on only in Trump’s inner circle of porcine Breitbart comb-overs.

We’ve so far skirted around the biggest of big things: Malmö’s advocacy of the positive role of street skating. This provides a real-life example to accompany the theory that street skating uses public space in an engaging and inclusive way, contributing to a town or city’s “collective symbolic capital”: the things that make it unique and attractive. Visitors aren’t drawn to the ten-a-penny high-street (unsurprisingly in terminal decline), where the design (and merging) of public and commercial space explicitly steers them towards either retail or work in Iain Borden’s analysis, but to imaginative, lively spaces created by the people who live there.

TBS DIY in all its post-industrial glory. Photo: Simon Bernacki.

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Ocean Howell demonstrated this in the tragi-comic story of Philadelphia in the early 2000s, whilst warning that skaters could become the unwitting foot soldiers of gentrification, useful in reclaiming unutilised space but ultimately expendable when the fruits of their labour raises the real estate value. A more sustainable situation, where skaters are neither vilified or exploited – where they are “good partners” to the city – is the long game Malmö seems to have nailed. From recent news that Hull aims to be the UK’s first genuinely skate friendly city (designing street skating into, rather than out of, new public space), it is perfectly possible in our hometowns too. But Kettering shows that the reverse can still happen. A punitive townhall seals the generational divide in law: not only does skateboarding in Kettering carry a £1,000 fine, being younger than 18 during certain times is similarly punished. Hull, European City of Culture in 2017, says to its residents: “this city is yours, activate it.” Kettering instead opted for inevitable population ageing and the calcification of civic space.

This isn’t just about skating, it’s about positive micro-action. The unspeakable horror of Big Politics in 2016 may continue all the way into 2017 if Marine Le Pen’s resurgent National Front aren’t stopped at the ballot box. The urban theorist David Harper, in calling for a new fight for our collective ‘right to the city’, remarks that, “while big fights might seem unwinnable, small victories can lead to bigger ones.” In Gustav’s view, skating’s success in Malmö has been part of the city’s wider success as a place to live, be young and grow older. If we want our hometowns to benefit us economically and socially, we need to stop seeing skateboarding in separation. In times of tight local budgets, our cities need us as much as we need them.

Written by: Chris Lawton.
Thanks to Rasmus Sjölin, Skate Malmö, Bryggeriet, Gustav Edén, Phil Evans. Watch Coping Mechanism on Vimeo OD.
Photo thanks to: Andrew Cullen, Simon Bernacki and Tim Smith.

This final photo is Chris putting in work to film Nottingham’s Elliot Maynard for a killer line in ‘Crows’ Feet‘. Photo: Andrew Cullen.

Get inspired. Collaborate, think, plan, lobby and transform your hometown.

Elliot_Maynard_photo_Andrew Cullen

Categories
Skateboarding News

Panoramic Series – Stockholm with Daniel Gronwall

formatperspectivePhilip Evans is back a fantatastic Panoramic Series featuring footage shot in Stockholm with Daniel Gronwall. It was shot completely in Panoramic using a set of photographic print filters and painted filters. Check the Format Perspective website for a much more detailed account of how this was put together.

Panoramic Series- Stockholm with Daniel Gronwall from Philip Evans on Vimeo.

Categories
Skateboarding News

Watch Polar’s No Complies & Wallrides + shuvits edit

Polar Skateboards have ended 2012 with a killer video edit titled “No Complies & Wallrides + shuvits” featuring all of their team riders and a new addition.

Get hyped on this beast. Skate Edit of the Week, hands down.

Categories
Skateboarding News

Ultrabowl 4 footage from Malmö, Sweden

Last weekend’s Ultrabowl comp in Malmo was a blast. Watch all the footage from the full weekend of action here.

Ultrabowl 4: Malmö, Sweden from Confusion Magazine on Vimeo.

Categories
Skateboarding News

Polar Skate Co release 8 minute promo

polarskatecoPontus Alv’s Polar Skate Co have dropped an eight minute promo this morning featuring the Polar team and friends. Feast your eyes and ears on this promo featuring what you would expect from Klez Motion Pictures International. If you want more info on what Polar’s deck range is like, then read our review.

Categories
Skateboarding News

Malmö’s Ultra Bowl comp footage and results

The annual jam down at Malmö’s Ultra Bowl went off last weekend for the third time in Sweden. Kevin Kowalski continued to pick up the plaudits with a win in the pro jam event and Danish veteran, Nicky Guerrero took the Masters ahead of UK legends Sean Goff and Paul Atkins. Watch the footage of this comp below.

Pro Results:

1. Kevin Kowalski
2. Brad McClain
3. Ben Hatchell
4. Cody Lockwood
5. Steven Reeves
6. Andy Macdonald
7. Fernando Bramsmark
8. Mattias Nyhlen
9. Benji Galloway
10. Josh Mattson

Malmö Ultra Bowl III Masters results:

1. Nicky Guerrero
2. Sean Goff
3. Paul Atkins
4. Lester Kasai
5. Sasha Steinhorst
6. Dave Toms

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Features Skateboarding

Searching For The Miraculous with Pontus Alv

As I’m sure anyone who has seen his films will agree, Pontus Alv is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating individuals in this strange web of culture, expression and creativity we like to call ‘skateboarding’. Never before has watching a video documenting the lives of others in skating granted the viewer with such personal insights into the filmmakers life and soul.

In his latest film, In Search Of The Miraculous, we see someone more than willing to bare all in the hope to inspire us to make the most of our temporary encounters with all things miraculous. In just a few questions, we learnt more about skating, filmmaking and life than most people ever share with others.

We begin our own search for the miraculous with an interview with Alv himself. How else were we meant to start?

Interview: Stanley
Images:
Alv

Some people have noted that In Search Of The Miraculous seems like a consciously straighter and more accessible production than Strongest Of The Strange. Did you have this idea in mind when editing it or is it a coincidence?

It is not easy to make a film, but the main thing about my new film is that I wanted it to be as different as possible from my first film but for there still to be a link between them. In my first film I went into the darkness and I wanted define myself and what skateboarding is to me. In this film I am searching for the light in life, trying to see the beauty and the big picture. I want it to be light, colourful and inspiring. I find it harder to work with classic beautiful elements like a rainbow, a sunset and so on… but I also enjoy the challenge. I don’t like to talk and explain my work cause sometimes I don’t even know, I just go for a feeling and a spirit. If I can feel it perhaps others can too.

My inspiration and motivation is to inspire you to inspire yourself.

Alv at The Barrier Spot in 2004. Photo: Tobias Henriksson

I’d argue that the film simply tells a new story from a filmmaker who’s experienced more than in his past production.  Indeed, experience and what we pass onto others struck me as a key theme in the film. What new things did you yourself learn about skateboarding in the process of making ISOTM?

Well like I said I am searching for the light in life, even if we go through hard times there will always be light. For example, some of my social sculptures in the past has been destroyed for whatever reason, and I could either just give up and do nothing, or I could keep going. Beautiful things are temporary and that’s why they are so wonderful. When I start building a new social sculpture I know it will be gone but the process and all the joy involved makes me feel alive and it puts a meaning to my life. I know it will be gone but it just makes it better cause you have to enjoy every moment you have together. If it would be permanent it would just be like a public skatepark which feels pretty dead and boring in the long term. Looking back at the last 10 years it is great that we got used to being bulldozed and it made us do more which gave us different things to ride over the years. And of course it created loads of good memories.

Learn about skateboarding? Well, it is the same rule as always… Skateboarding is a freeform and it is up to you to do whatever you like with it. It is just an instrument and there are no rules what so ever. It’s all up to you to do whatever you like with it. That is the beauty. No matter what direction the industry and world is going you can still do whatever you like. The same rule goes in life.

The Holma ramp on its way to heaven. Photo: Pontus Alv

The way in which skateboarding can give us an escape from the dark corners of our lives is at the forefront of ISOTM and SOTS, I think it’s uplifting and motivational to everyone watching, even for non-skateboarders. How do you begin the process of instilling something so personal (particularly the things connected with your  father and family) to you into something that’s to be watched worldwide by people who don’t necessarily know much about you, if anything at all?

Yes my videos are personal and I like to mix in personal elements in my films. For me skateboarding is more than just tricks and I try to define the bigger picture. Everything we go through in life matters, our history and our present, our dreams, our future thoughts, our lovelife, work, friends and so on.  How do I feel today? Well, when I step on my board I will know. If my heart is broken or my mind is messed up or my soul is stressed out my board will tell me and together we will express whatever feelings we are going through. That, for me, is one of the greatest things about skateboarding. It is always there for you, faithful and loving almost like a dog. We can always run away together and vent about life, whatever it may be, we can talk about sex, friends, history we can talk about everything and most of the time we will find a solution to almost everything or at least feel better about it. Talking things over with a really good friend helps, and this is why I love my skateboard so much. It’s my best friend and I hope we can grow old together somehow.

So what I am trying to say is that everything in life is linked, skateboarding is linked to everything else and vice versa. Most videos focus on the things within skateboarding… what happens at the spot and around the spot perhaps a coffee break inbetween, but most videos never deal with life itself or talk about. Don’t skateboarders have a life outside of skateboarding?

Move on and start again…

The video, like your last is dedicated to your father. His words of inspiration that you pick up on are reflected in how independent and influential your direction is. What do you think his reaction would be if he could see the film?

Who says he is not watching my films? They are here, I see signs and they guide me. I personally think they did most of the editing by controlling my thoughts and soul.

Torsten and Märta Alv

Your films regularly shun the typical conventions of skate videos by selling a narrative instead of a product or team. The skaters in are connected to you in a way that transcends sponsorship deals and stuff like that.  In your editing technique you tend to stray away from standard time lapses and montages and instead borrow influence from cinematographers and magicians of the past like George Méliès. Who, or what in particular inspires you when making your films, and what does each skateboarder bring to the finished piece of work?

I find inspirations everywhere in life. My inspiration can come from anything and from nothing, from small little things you pick up here and there. I have a huge inspiration from the Alv family archive. It is a huge film and photo archive that starts around 1900. I grew up with it and I think this influenced me a lot. I also like everything from the beginning of photography and filmmaking, especially during the years 1900-1930. I am a big fan of Hans Richter.

And yes you are very right I am not trying to sell a product, I just want to show wonderful skateboarding of all types young old tech street pools ramps etc. I love it all and I want to give back as much as possible to skateboarding as possible because skateboarding gave me everything. I think it is the least I can do after all the things skateboarding gave me.

Pontus on the wall again. Photo: Jean Feil

As you’ve pointed out in the past, skateboarding has an inherent feeling of joy, freedom and creativity that’s almost inexplicable, but these feelings we associate with skating can often be crushed by the skate industry, sponsors, deadlines and the like. Sadly, I find it hard to imagine a world where skateboarding can exist independently of those factors for countless reasons, economical and otherwise. But your films still capture that freedom even in 2010. How can we, as skateboarders who love what the pastime has given our lives work together to make skateboarding better?

One thing that we all have to remember is that skateboard industry and business is not skateboarding, it is business. Skateboarding is really simple. It is what you do when you and your friends go skateboarding and have a wonderful or horrible time. The people that are involved with the industry or belonging to the elite skateboarding is just a very small percentage of the world’s skateboarders. We can be controlled by them or we can control ourselves. Like I said earlier, skateboarding is a freeform and it is up to you to do whatever you like with.

Briefly, where is the miraculous?

Right in front of you.

Watch the film in full here:

For a full review of In Search Of The Miraculous then head here. And stay tuned as we continue searching for the miraculous with Mr. Danijel Stankovich in an interview coming soon…