LOVE x Malmö: observing displacement
Words by Aymeric Nocus
Back in 2015, maybe not so coincidentally soon after the respective passings of the original city planner, Edmund Bacon and the architect, Vincent G. Kling, the city of Philadelphia remodeled the iconic LOVE Park plaza, thereby erasing an architecture that generations worldwide had at least thought of possibly nosegrinding. Then on the other side of the pond, in Sweden, the city of Malmö, working together with Gustav Eden and the local skateboarders, eventually pulled the unprecedented move that is salvaging the materials of the former spot, importing them over and then reconstructing the plaza on location, thus performing a kind of geographical and cultural transplant.
Further reading: Free Skate Mag ‘A Tale Of Two Cities’ by Ben Powell:https://www.
On the societal level, in a different location but the same era, the situation isn’t without evoking the recent closing, then reopening situation in São Paulo (Vale do Anhangabaú plaza) where the local skaters had to get involved in order to save the spot, via input on the redesign, which they eventually managed; a demonstration of successful adaptation towards a set goal of relative preservation and/or continuation. Except in the case of LOVE x Malmö, the second life of the spot takes place elsewhere.
The displacement is interesting as such and aside all of the progressive aspects of the enterprise, by nature is bound to raise many questions. How much of the weight of a physical location can be encapsulated, and then moved to a different location to support it, in terms of cultural load? What qualities can such a feature be expected to retain, earn, lose once it has shifted?
The film shows the modern SABOTAGE crew have accepted and adhere to the motion now, but remarking their original skepticism is interesting. It is a bit reminiscent of the now considered by most prehistoric generations of Barcelona skateboarders who really mostly endured the weight of skate tourism rewriting their spots in all kinds of ways as soon as the early 2000’s during the European Big Boom, but whose voices were swept under the rug of progress unless they could roll with the direction it was running; just under a different form.
It has to be O.K. that such concerns can be expressed and considered, especially more so when something so ambitious happens in a modern world context the direction of which obviously is uncertain, and given human proneness to short-term thinking, all the more so if passionate. It also may be healthier than it has been in a long time to question, on a personal level, all kinds of representations, projections, cultural and identity-oriented constructions, in order to really get to grind further ahead.
It has been observed (Ocean Howell) how skateboarders indirectly could play a role in gentrification by ‘cleaning up’ public places more efficiently than paid municipal agents would with raw repression, then the local economy — but also rent — goes up; and then, the next step oftentimes is private takeover of the public space e.g.. AirBnB’s at the expense of locals, terraces, intrusion from large chains… Which would sound contradictory to a city that would be a space of communication, play, and wander, diminishing the secrets and dissolving all in-between into merely liminal soup again.
Another out-of-scope observation to serve as a counterpoint would be that it appears most crucial that, as modernizing in such a way (other experimental examples exist: Bordeaux in France…) is becoming a model even to smaller, average-sized cities and towns which, by naive nature and/or oriented interest, are by default bound to just replicate form without understanding actual design and intended function, there needs to be all the more verbal communication and preparation about it.
That is why, regardless of politics, opinions, motivations and thickness of one’s skate bubble, let alone all of the progressive, inclusive, cooperative points the initiative makes at large, that this film exists is notable. It represents a shift that is more than the one of a place, and more than one of a spot, but encapsulates live reactions to a modern possibility that in a way is some kind of survival and thus equally terrifying. It also captures how insane skateboarders can get in terms of ambitions and dreams, and humans progress towards making the unattainable happen, whatever they decide it is, ultimately achieving concrete results that as a skateboarder it is in turn O.K. to question.