On January 17th Sarah Meurle took home FSOTY at the BRIGHT European Skateboarding Awards. We spoke to her about the recognition of womxn in skateboarding, and what it means to win Female Skater of the Year.
How does it feel to have won Female Skater of the Year at the BESA’17 awards?
It feels really great, I’m amazed that so many people must have voted for me. Somehow it shows I’ve been inspiring to people and that is the best I could wish for.
Well it’s well deserved! Do you believe you’ve become something of a role model now?
Thank you! From my perspective I’m just myself, but I can hear how I’ve influenced people sometimes and that’s really cool. I think this prize shines a light on that.
What’s your outlook on “Female Skater” versus “Skater” of the year award split? Is it a necessary distinction?
I think it’s important that both men and womxn are represented at an event like this, it does not necessarily have to be divided up into these two categories though. Compared to other sports which really distinguishes a difference between men and womxn, skateboarding is harder to define how awards or contests should be dealt with. If you have a favourite skater that probably depends more on how they skate rather than their gender.
How might you alter the categories in these sorts of instances?
I think the fact that Leo Baker won the Populist award just recently proves the fact that a skater is a skater who can be influential and it’s does not have to be divided into gender categories. Although looking at other kinds of awards, like the Oscar awards – where what is valued is an artistic value and not about strength or who can jump the highest – they also have male and female categories in the roles of best actress and best actor. It’s a way to have an equal amount of womxn and men in these awards, but when it comes to the director’s award or costume design there’s no gender definition, whoever made the strongest impact on the audience is the winner.
For the skate award maybe this is the way to go as well, to have categories for both men and womxn as skater of the year, as before, but also keeping the award open to bring in female nominees as cinematographers, photographers, or to Part of the Year, if there is someone who has done something great.
I think that’s true. It’s a tough balance, and it’s a young argument in skateboarding. But things are changing. What are some of the most interesting and exciting projects/individuals are who are moving things forward in this way?
The most exciting part of this change is not based on the fact that one person made a difference, it’s everybody, all these skaters who are doing it because that’s what they want to do, even if it’s going against the norm. Everybody hyping each other up. Instagram has made a huge difference, and so quickly. I think skaters that have been around for a long time are pillars of what womxn skateboarding has grown through. It can be famous womxn skaters – like Elissa Steamer, or Alexis Sablone, or Leo Baker – but it can also be local heroes, like the person who helped you learn how to drop in on a ramp, or who cheered you on at the local skatepark. The Skate Witches, Instagram accounts like @girlsshred, what Nike SB involved us in this past year was also just the beginning of something bigger. But there are so many on a smaller scale, in each country that are doing something for this scene to become more equal.
You are on a personal journey too. What are you hoping to achieve in the next year or two?
Yeah, I’ve been studying these past four years and in about two months from now I’ll finish my BA in Fine Art Photography. I’ve been balancing that with skating on the side. When I’m finished with studying it will lean over to the other way, towards skating full-time and I’ll do art on the side for the next couple of years ahead.
“I’m really interested in chance procedures and mistakes.”
Do you welcome that shift?
I’m really looking forward to skating and travelling more, doing photography and involving it more with skateboarding than I’ve been doing lately. I did film a part last year, with some injuries and breaks, that will be released really soon, but yeah, after my exams I’ll be out on the streets again.
That’s rad. Do you see a career for yourself a skate-photographer? Or is your inspiration creatively not so narrow?
What I do in my art practice is more related to camera-less works and darkroom experiments, abstractions, I’m really interested in chance procedures and mistakes. I never have seen myself as a skate photographer, for all the years I’ve been shooting pictures I’ve always pointed the camera towards the surroundings, people, observing how light moves and just a general interest in the creative part of it. Shooting skate photos is something I’ve started doing just recently really, and only if someone has asked me to shoot something. I think a lot of times when I could have shot a skate photo there has been a more established skate-photographer around, where I’ve spent my time in front of the lens, and behind it in the moments in between skating. But I’ve realised it’s really fun as long as I can do it how I like to do it.
ARTWORK by SARAH MEURLE
What about chance/mistakes attracts you?
In short there is something about mistakes and failure that interests me, one thing is how it can create something new, something objective that you yourself never could have created, seeing something from a new perspective. An abstract picture or something you can’t depict can have an impact on you without you being able to explain it. A lack of conscious design can be a way to reach the subconscious. I use photographs that have gone wrong, mistakes that have already happened, by other people, or by myself and create pictures out of them or try to read something from them. I’m still investigating this really.
I think it’s the normalisation of failure that attracted me to skateboarding in the first place. Falling over, over and over. If you can apply that same love of the fall to the rest of your life, you can enjoy the whole thing a lot more. What do you think?
I love that thought! That is really true, I think there’s definitely an attraction in skateboarding being a struggle, the repetition that in the end will lead to something, seeing it more as a whole than a fall in itself.
“I think there’s definitely an attraction in skateboarding being a struggle”
Word. Sarah – a word to any girls out there thinking about starting, or just starting out skateboarding?
This might sound a bit cliché – but don’t let anything prevent you from what you want to do. Have as much fun as possible!
Preach! Finally, if you had a button that, were you to push it, would change on thing. What would it change, and could you bring yourself to push it?
Ouf, that question is a big one. The environment button, the equal rights button, the world peace button. I would push all of those. But if I’d have a smaller button just for my interest it would probably involve ice cream. But then again, maybe I should just go to an all-you-can-eat ice cream buffet. A sunshine button would be great, I wouldn’t want it a hundred percent of the time though so I’m not sure if I could bring myself to push it. There would have to be a switch on it. Or a fade.
