While many of us were locked away at Bryggeriet in Malmö getting things ready for Pushing Boarders, the raddest crew of international volunteers was busy sweating away to build the Pig Barrier DIY spot up the road. Among them were Aram Sabbah (SkatePal) from Ramallah, Palestine; Atita Verghese (Girls Skate India) from Bangalore, India; and Leyla Garboza (Concrete Jungle Foundation) from Trujillo, Peru.
Sadly, after five long days of Scandi sunshine, rain rolled in, but moods were still running high and the Big Pour got done just in time. The concrete dried and all is well, even if the inaugural Pig Barrier skate jam got swamped. While they weren’t able to shred their creation, they did put on a powerful Pushing Boarders panel about global skate aid, titled Globally Stoked: Grass-Roots Skateboarding. Whether you were lucky enough to be in the audience or not, these are three incredible skate activists that you gotta’ get to know.
LEYLA GARBOZA
Interview by Will Ascott
Leyla, where are we and what’s happening?
I feel like I’m in a sweet dream and I’m gonna wake up in hospital without legs from all this work and skateboarding. No, actually we’ve just spent a week staying in Bryggeriet, where we are now, and we’ve been building the Pig Barrier DIY with great people and a very positive vibe.
How did you get here?
Pushing Boarders wanted someone from Concrete Jungle Foundation, in Trujillo, Peru to come down here, so they contacted me and told me about the conference and the DIY build. I told them I’d love to go but I don’t have the money, then they offered to pay it all, no se diga mas. Now I’m here, and it’s actually the first time I’ve left my country…but not the last!
And what’s been happening in Peru?
I’ve been working with Concrete Jungle Foundation at a skatepark in a school – a poor area with lots of drugs and crime. I was working with kids from 7-11 years old. The school changed PE for skateboarding class! I’ve been trying to meet the parents of the kids to apply my knowledge as a psychologist. The kids have a lot of serious behavioural problems that start at home, so I’m trying to help make this change, but it takes the support of the parents too, which can be hard. Skateboarding does so much for them though, I’m sure of it.
And how’s the skate scene generally in Peru for womxn?
Bad. It’s very different here in Sweden. We don’t have sponsors or even support from families. So any female skaters have to work super hard to buy skateboards and shoes. The level of skateboarding in Peru is low compared to USA, Brazil, etc, because of this lack of support and the necessity to work long hours. I also want people to understand that skateboarding in Peru is not the same as in Europe, we don’t have the same opportunities and we experience serious sexism.
“I’m hopeful that the girls at home will show greater solidarity having seen the girl’s scene grow globally.”
But the girls I’ve met this week, they push me to be a better skater, in a really positive environment with no selfishness. We have been welcomed incredibly, shown around the city and treated really well. In Peru, we have a few groups of girls that don’t mix well, which is a real shame. Skateboarding girls, as a minority, need to show more positivity and unity to the next generation. I’m hopeful that the girls at home will show greater solidarity having seen the girl’s scene grow globally. I will be trying to achieve this with group skate lessons for girls in Lima, including all the crews.
And how do these things affect you?
I’m not getting the support I need, as I don’t fit the image of ‘girly skater’ that the industry wants. It feels like the same as with Leo Baker, how they was well supported at first before they changed to a more queer style, at which point they lost some sponsors. Obviously now they is so successful, setting a precedent in the industry and opening doors for the rest of us. I’m stoked to meet them in the coming days!
How are you feeling about the panel?
I’m very nervous. But at the same time excited, as this is a new opportunity for me to show how skateboarding works for people, changes lives, helps young people persevere, gets society to respect skateboarding.
We’ll let you get back to it. Any final words?
Love and skateboarding, see ya’ soon.
ARAM SABBAH
Interview by Oisín Tammas
When did you arrive in Malmo?
The second of August.
That was for the DIY build, yeah? How was that experience?
I had to stay here three days before the build started. But when the build started it was really nice, I was really excited for it. This is my first time building anything concrete. I was fucking excited! It was a good step in my life.
How was it working with the other people? What was the vibe like on the site?
Good people, lots of people. Just nice. I think it went well.
You got to skate it, yeah?
A little bit, but it wasn’t that much. I don’t know how to skate vert, but it’s skateable. It’s nice.
And it rained a lot this week. That sucked. How nervous were you about the upcoming panel when you were building?
Yeah, and the whole time before coming out to Malmo. I was really honored to be on it. But a couple of days before the panel I was okay. When I saw a couple of people talk on a panel, I was like, ‘Oh cool it’s easy.’
Had you ever done anything like that before?
[laughing] A skate conference? Never.
The whole people are welcoming, we welcome foreigners in every way, and we fucking love skateboarding.
I don’t think anyone’s really done anything like this before! But, like, have you been in a position where you’re addressing a lot of people?
I don’t think so. Can’t remember really.
I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that what you were putting out there in that panel was one of the big take-homes from this event. It really was. You spoke completely from the heart, and I think for a lot of people that resonated really well. What was so interesting about the way your point about rather than just coming to Palestine to volunteer and then leave, it’s about coming to skate and recognizing the Palestinian skate scene as a real skate scene. For it to grow. I thought that was one of the most interesting points, because, as someone coming from a developed skate scene I think, ‘I want to help!’ That’s the instinct.
It’s good intentions. I’m not saying it’s got bad intentions. If you address this thing only now, it’s not going to be addressed in the future. Because in the future if you plan and help and do all these things, then suddenly you don’t want to help anymore. We’ve already seen it, it’s not nice. So if we don’t have this talk from the start…
You were saying that it’s going to take time, of course, because we’ve had so many years of skateboarding here — but for you, where do you see the key hotspots of Palestinian skateboarding today? Which areas, which people, so that if anyone reads this interview and says, ‘I want to go skate with Palestinians in Palestine,’ where should they be going?
If you try to go on a skate trip with you and your crew, and you’re skating everything, I’d advise you to go to Jericho, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, I don’t know. Every fucking city! Every city in Palestine. The whole people are welcoming, we welcome foreigners in every way, and we fucking love skateboarding.
So good! And, uh, what are you hoping to bring back from this experience? To your life in Palestine.
Knowledge. Of being in a good place with good vibes and good people. And so many different perspectives, all coming from everyone’s experience. And everyone has experienced a lot of shit. It’s a good amount of people coming out here. When they talk, you just sit down and listen. You just take that for yourself. I think that, by itself, will reflect on how I treat the kids and how I work with the kids somehow. And also building. I’m going to go build something. I want to build a lot of shit. A lot of wallies!
Can I ask as well, how easy it was for you to get here?
Well I’m really lucky and privileged. I have another passport that can ease my travel through Europe without having a visa. If I didn’t have that, it would be really fucking hard.
ATITA VERGHESE
Interview by Oisín Tammas
How’s it been for you so far? How’s the whole experience? Getting here and everything.
Good. Amazing! Very interesting bunch of people. Lots of conscious people here. Too many almost, because you can’t talk to all of them in such a short time. But it’s amazing to get honest and talk about things that matter.
How does it feel being on a panel and having to address this group of people? What was something you really wanted to put across and how did it change when you were actually there?
I don’t really know exactly what I was going for. I guess just sharing as much as I could about what I know. I guess it went okay because I got pretty good feedback.
Did you have a favorite moment from the event? Did you get to skate the pig barrier spot yet?
Yeah, yeah, I did! We had a little builder’s session, it was nice. It’s hard to skate though. But it was nice to be there. And I don’t know, there were so many good moments I don’t know which one to choose. I guess every moment where people were brutally honest and didn’t hold back from what they were thinking about. It was amazing to be part of.
It was also interesting for me, because I felt like people were learning from me. White people in Europe were learning to build from me!
How many days were you here building before the talk?
In total I was here a week before the talk. It was cool to be out here in Sweden, building a new spot and leaving it behind. Creating relationships with people on my panel a week before we started talking was good I think, because it gave us familiarity with each other. It made the panel even more fun to be on. Just doing DIY in a new country is so exciting, with a new crew.
It’s so rad to see it coming the other way around, from, like, having people in really developed skate communities going over to places that aren’t as developed and building parks. It’s like actually having someone from India, someone from Peru, someone from Palestine coming here and leaving a park here. It’s the coolest switch of that dynamic, it’s awesome.
It was also interesting for me, because I felt like people were learning from me. White people in Europe were learning to build from me!
Well you’re the expert! Especially in places like India — I mean we did that interview with you and Abhishek before — especially in countries which don’t have a huge amount of money pumped into skateboarding, people have to come up with alternative and very ingenious ways to do something. So they become the experts in this thing. And we kind of fetishize DIY in the West, because it’s like everything is too perfect. You almost want DIY stuff, stuff that’s weird to skate and hard. And you want more spots. It’s so amazing, I think there should be so many more opportunities for us to defer to experts who have done this around the world and have done this for ages. Hopefully we can do that again.
So what’s up now? When do you go back to India and what are you planning to do when you go back?
I’m gonna stay here actually for the next two months. My partner is Belgian, so I’m going to there. Then I’m going to go back to India after that. I’m thinking of doing another girls tour, because, like, it was really difficult for me to do it all by myself the first two times. I was almost like, ‘No this is not happening anymore! I can’t put this kind of burden on myself.’ But now there are more girls that are interested to come on it. Like the Skate Witches are super down to come. So I almost can’t say no anymore! I’m going to go plan that out and see if I can get more local girls included in the project.
So that’s a tour of India?
Yeah. That’s been the challenge the first three times. Initially I created it because I wanted more girls to come out from India, but it ended up being almost nobody from India. For all these different reasons, of course, but now I kind of want to center it on India. Hopefully I get sponsorship for this event so I can make it more accessible, y’know?
If you need any media to come along or cover it, we’re so down to do that. We would love to cover it. We want to do more and more of that stuff, and show skateboarding what tours look like on the other side of skateboarding, you know what I mean?
Yeah, I think that’s really important. For example, maybe I’m wrong, but I’m probably the only Asian skateboarder on the panel. On any of the panels. That actually grew up in Asia. It’s really interesting to me, because I can relate to a lot of things they’re talking about, but a lot of things it’s like, ‘It’s not like that everywhere in the world!’ It’s really different in places where Leyla comes from or where I come from or where Aram is from. Nobody really talks about that. We are not really used to talking about these things, because it’s never been about this side of skateboarding. It’s always European or American centered. Colonial nations. I could relate to a lot of things, but I want to see more people from my side of things talking about things I can feel a bit more.
All of this is amazing. This is what we need to hear for the future when we do Pushing Boarders again. Particularly in the Asian scenes, there’s so much going on there.
Yeah. I know more about the Western skate scenes than I do about my own side of things! I just don’t see it that much, I don’t know where to look for it.
