Stop what you’re doing, GO skateboarding - Philipp Schuster shows how it's done

“Skateboarding is all about questioning prohibitions, breaking up established structures and putting them into a new creative context,” says Schuster, who’s releasing his ICON clip on June 21 to celebrate the 12th International Go Skateboarding Day.

In the video, the 31-year-old breaks out of a life-sized No skateboarding sign, destroying and shredding it as he skates it.

“I grew up in a time when skateboarding in public was frowned upon,” adds the Viennese athlete.

“The Go Skateboarding Day has helped make skateboarding more present and showed that skateboarding isn’t evil, it rather helps diversify urban life.”

First established by the International Association of Skateboard Companies in 2004, the Go Skateboarding Day celebrates the creativity, freedom and rebelliousness of the sport.

ICON is Philipp Schuster’s contribution to that movement: “In literally and visually going from No skateboarding to Go skateboarding, we epitomize the creative awakening every skateboarder knows,” says Schuster, who first stumbled upon street signs more than a year ago. Since then it was all about finding a way to turn his idea into a reality: “I wanted to make the transition from 2D to 3D using natural means only, instead of building the set digitally.”

Schuster went on to design the obstacles himself and worked with the production company Fuzion Collective to bring his idea to life. They built a life-sized, crossed-out full pipe to create the 2D effect of a No skateboarding sign with Schuster as an icon in it. By breaking out of the prohibition sign and smashing it, he shows the rebellious side of skateboarding. By taking the destroyed parts of the sign and interpreting them in a new way, he shows that skateboarding doesn’t destroy but creates.

“Skateboarding has always been confronted with prohibitions and had to search for places where it could grow,” says Simon Fraissler, director of photography at Fuzion Collective.

“The idea behind ICON is to not let prohibitions restrict you, but utilize them to create something new and unique.”

By Red Bull

You can find out more about the project here. 

No Skateboarding? More Like GO Skateboarding, with Philipp Schuster (Red Bull, June 2016)

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