Brian Wallace is an artist-turned-skater from the UK, who is probably best known for his bizarre, fantastical sculptures made out of old skate shoes. In this photo essay, he considers the meaning of all those shoes — what they cost the earth, what they cost our subculture, and whether it is ever truly possible for skateboarding to disentangle itself from capitalism. Or, failing that, for capitalism to disentangle itself from environmental degradation and human rights abuses. He recently sold the sculptures pictured here to benefit an organisation that helps clean up plastic in the oceans. Fuck yeah, Brian. – SKATEISM
Words and Art by Brian Wallace
About 5 years ago I found myself sat amidst a massacre of old skate shoes. They’d been sliced, cut, ripped and torn into pieces; there was glue everywhere and blood splats from box cutter slits. I’d already been making sculptures from skate shoes for nearly a year. I’d been drawn to skate shoe materials as they are an overlooked waste material. Every movement leaves its mark on a shoe, and they end up describing a life through abrasion. The pre-destruction colors, cuts and shapes of the shoes are intentional, and relevant to both modern and retro styles that celebrate street and skate culture through fashion. Whilst sitting amongst the deconstructed products, I considered the stories of the shoes and the accompanying brand identities that had been drilled into my mind. I didn’t realize that this bizarre mix of waste and creative space would open a Pandora’s box of thoughts. I had unintentionally created a liminal space in which to create. My perspective began to change — I no longer needed to push my creations into an imaginative and surreal space… the reality of the shoes’ story was as equally or more bizarre and dramatic as any I could imagine.
I was drawn to deconstructing products because destroying is fun, of course, but also essential to any kind of creation. Tearing apart products from the infallible companies that exert influence and power over culture is liberating. It feels like smashing a TV. It’s a freeing of the mind. It’s the joy of destroying symbols that have come to be synonymous with power and place in society through marketing, brand ambassadorship, and advertising. All of these methods of disseminating information are unsolicited. We consumers have very little control over what images and messages we retain, given the incessant audiovisual barrage of our age. So, until some law classifies unwanted barrages of information as ‘psychological assaults’, we’re stuck being overloaded with unwanted information. Thus, it feels great to have the control and power to form, shape and create, and to question and challenge the infallible totems and symbols of culture while doing it. It’s a push back. Countercultures have always seen their brands appropriated by the high street. The saturation of society with countercultural symbols subtly weakens the movement or message of that culture and disenfranchises those that depend on it for their identity. By destroying these symbols, I had hoped to reclaim them.
Consumers that start to catch on to ‘underground’ brands, spurred on by the economics of scarcity into desperate, dope sick purchasing, are often labelled undead and brainless. They’re often ridiculed for “not knowing where it started or where it comes from.” As a fringe culture is overtaken by these zombies, a backlash inevitably begins; the war drums start up in counterculture havens and the ‘back in the dayers’ start holding ceremonies to summon the spirits of the beginning to rid the world of this new plague.
The debate is ongoing as to whether or not the popularization of skateboarding has been a good thing for skateboarding. One thing is for sure: the world’s awareness of skateboarding and its culture have allowed for a rich, diverse and strong community to emerge globally, with greater support and appreciation for all involved. Yet with its growth has come a new set of cultural oligarchs, whose access to wealth and media allows them to absorb and resell philosophies and ways of life back to those who were already living it. Under this regime, people’s lives are expressed through brands and products, as brands have become, as they always strive to be, a means of self-expression within skateboarding. What you wear says a lot about how you skate, and that’s the conversation they want you to be having. But no matter what a brand tries to fabricate as its brand image, there is one thing that nearly every apparel company has in common: a supply chain. The grim side of the industry, the part they don’t want you debating on Twitter.
It’s apparent that the most visible and glorified aspect of skate culture has become whose name or what brand name is on apparel, the ‘brand philosophy’, its association with certain brand ambassadors, and the overall media identity this creates. The communities who created the symbols of this culture are deliberately left anonymous. This kind of blind action sets a precedent that an abstract notion of the value of branded goods is of greater worth than the actual individuals, communities and environment that created that value in the first place.
It’s increasingly evident given the lack of transparency from most major brands that nearly any supposedly countercultural brand that wishes to position itself as inclusive, creative and socially aware falls flat on its face when one considers its supply chain. Nevertheless, brands love to be global and talk about their global ‘families’. The reality is that none of us know where the products we use to define our lives started, and we don’t pay homage to the people that made it what it is. To wit, the skater owned vs. non-skater owned argument is pretty pointless if their supply chains are both the same. Supply chains are an ethically opaque void that capitalist competition has created. Brands like to tout that they “stay true to our roots,” but it would seem a lot of our subcultural scenes have roots in labor rights abuses and international environmental crime.
It’s easy to criticize, and many would say that “it’s the only way to compete with the big brands.” But the irony of it is that big brands are already moving to affiliate themselves with social movements for marketing purposes, even if they don’t care about the actual impact. Its brand identity 101, a clear move to corner the lucrative youth market, which is currently striking, campaigning and demanding action, driven by predictions of an even more dystopian future. And it’s welcome, I guess. Or it would be more so, were it actually in proportion to the scale of the problem.
The army of skeletons in our closets is marching out to meet us, and this demands greater ambition from businesses, enforced via consumer buying power. As Vans themselves state on their website: “To truly fulfill our commitment to protecting the planet and its resources for future generations, we must change the way we create products.” Indeed. Skate Trash Art is my peculiar attempt to draw attention to this need. There is power to form and shape society, culture and our collective future through our habits. All cultures now face a transitional period, in which they must rearrange their cultural values, in hopes of enacting the type of radical solutions required to stave off destruction. Challenging industry leaders’ lack of action, proportionate to the scale of the problem that they themselves have created is a small step towards a solution.
The thing is, creating a couple of new pairs of shoes out of waste products isn’t really solving anything. We have to look to the source of the waste. This art project allows us, by deconstructing a discarded item, to look back down the supply chain of globalized consumerism under late stage capitalism. It seeks to encourage awareness of how companies attract and retain consumers via both capital and cultural capital, and how they then acquire more of it by stepping in to provide and sell the solutions to the ills they’ve created. But individual and collective consumer habits can forcefully redesign the designers of these products. With youth strikes and marches around the world, it’s clear this young generation is questioning why polluters never pay, and why we’re still paying them to do it. It’s our world and this is our culture. So please, question popular ideals, opinions and traditions, no matter what brand is backing them. Look at the reality, not the hype.
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If this essay has you thinking about how your fashion affects the planet, here are a few helpful sites Brian submitted to help you understand and track your impact. Nothing skate-specific (yet!), but it’s a start:
- https://goodonyou.eco/
- https://cleanclothes.org/
- https://thegoodshoppingguide.com/your-ethical-comparison-site
And make sure to follow Brian on Instagram: @bri_makes
