WINGED LIFE: BERLIN
Video filmed and edited by Julian Lopez
Photography in Berlin by Joel Peck
Words by Axel Lindquist
The fact that skateboard media — street footage — is a historical document of a city, is no novel thought. I know benches that have changed in cities that I have never visited. Yet skateboarders wouldn’t ponder this in the same way an urban historian or architect immediately would realise the scholarly potential for this practice. Us woodpushers instead find rather narrow reasons to care for the changing city; when it’s too late to try to skate that spot, or in a worse case, to land that trick. Or, in the peculiar contemporary scene, struck by the ambivalent feelings towards spots that have now been sanctioned by the city as designated skateboard areas. Regardless, skate clips and photos constitute a great, but rather particular, library of city and environment depiction. Through frog perspective and zoom pans, with arbitrary rules of what counts as street and what doesn’t. Some choose to depict a spot, a part of the city, because it was fun to skate, others because it looks good, and of course, in the human tradition of meaning-making, we often end up appreciating spots as good-looking because they are “fun” to skate, and so on. Yet what’s more interesting is that by studying skate clips I, and probably many of us, also have an idea of the atmosphere of cities we’ve never visited. The sounds. The people. Weather conditions. The terroir that shapes a certain type of skateboarding. Yet this, to a large extent, also depends on what the filmer chooses to depict. You will, in one way or another, experience the city as the filmer chooses to present it. That way, reciprocally, each depiction also adds to the city we know. That is, you help create the city by choosing what features to highlight in your portrait. That skateboarding has influenced the public understanding of city identities is today evident, from Malmö to New York. Yet while skateboarders are keen on this practice, we are definitely not the only ones.
Roland Hirsch, gap to frontside boardslide to fakie.
In the mid-eighties, after spending eight years in the US, the German film director Wim Wenders came back to Germany and to Berlin, an “island of a city” in a country split in two. Trying to rediscover his torn country in, and through, his favourite city, Wim decided to make a movie about Berlin and all its facets. This resulted in the instantly recognised masterwork Wings of Desire. While Wim chose to depict his city with telepathic angels and winged circus artists, now almost four decades after its release, the film serves as an important and unique historical document for the ever-changing city. People revisit the locations of the scenes to recognise the gradual change the city has gone through, and to differentiate how the city’s character has evolved through the decades. Through the film, they can recognise what scars of the past are still there, and what new marks have emerged. That is, regardless of Wim’s very personal and artistic depiction of the city, or maybe because of its interpretive portrait of an atmosphere, the film functions as a reference point for others to connect to the city and its contemporary state. By depicting his city, Wim now offers others to recognise their city, and further inspire new artists to make their own portrayals.
Kai Hillebrand, pole-jam.
Now, I’m sorry to drag you through this very long and affected introduction. It’s just that the concept of the (currently untitled) project at hand, which is to focus on skateboarding’s already deep tradition of documentation to paint a portrait of a specific city, in this case Berlin, is a sick idea. Now Julian Lopez wouldn’t call himself a director, but the fact that this project is deliberately independent as to have full creative control hints of a vision he’s not willing to compromise on. Hence, while not every portrait is a love letter, we have no reason to doubt that this is an expression of appreciation for the city he chose to move to, live in, and keep in front of his lens. “Berlin. I’m a foreigner here, and yet it is so familiar,” as stated by the trapeze artist Marion in Wings of Desire. Maybe Julian related to these words when he first heard them blasting from the speakers at the outdoor cinema back in 2020, when he had just moved to the city. Regardless, the movie stayed with him, struck by the film’s historical documentation, showing Potsdamer Platz as flat and empty. And when it’s time for Julian to paint his own portrait of the city, the film stands as inspiration. Full circle.
Justin Sommer, hardflip.
Now, Julian’s clip did not come from a clear idea, but it evolved gradually over the two years of filming. Julian himself moved to Berlin from Munich and is, in that sense, just like Wim Wenders (born in Düsseldorf), both an insider and an outsider in Berlin. In regards to skating, and for a project like this, it might actually have served Julian well. As in any skate scene of cities big enough to inevitably have to develop different clusters of skaters in order to effectively go street skating, Berlin, with its three and a half million citizens, also shares this tension. Some locals formed relationships and established groups when they were just kids, that ten or twenty years later, still affect the dynamic of the skating scene. But by being an outsider, initially unaffected by these old constellations, you can manage to bridge these bygone constellations. Especially if you’re a well-respected filmer. Apart from the social relaxation, this attribute also adds that a portrait of the city becomes better representative of a whole scene.
Leon Charo-Tite, ride-on backside lipslide to backside nosebluntslide.
— “Now, towards the end of this project, we’ve been having crews with like ten people who usually never hang out. And it just comes together. And, for me, it feels super nice to just connect all of those who usually don’t skate together. Like they’re not in the same WhatsApp chat as me or with the other guys, you know?”
Kids and elders, same city, different conditions. Yet age does not offer any excuses. Watching the footage of local hero Roland “Hirschi” Hirsch, acknowledging that he was born around the time Wim Wenders first came back to Berlin, you understand how the character of a city can remain throughout different generations and cosmetic changes, with hardy people like that. Now juggling jobs and responsibilities, Hirschi is still out skating and filming the roughest stuff. And they are out often. In the weeks pushing for the deadline, Julian is out filming 4-5 days a week. Going from spot to spot by bike. On top of that, Joel Peck came in shooting for the article, cranking up the hype.
Patrick “Rocco” Rogalski, kickflip.
Apart from locals, the project also ended up with an impressive mix of visiting skaters that you might otherwise not see skate together. While not deliberately planned, it does represent the skate scene of Berlin very well, being a teeming junction where a lot of skaters pass through. Because if you go to Germany to skate, you probably end up in Berlin. It’s a city where pedestrians let you be. Often, the police as well. Even when they see you sitting there, smoking, waxing and daubing with the Bondo. And while it’s relevant to discuss the prevailing gentrification and rising rents, life is still cheaper in Berlin than in many other German cities. Qualities that, in one way or another, also shape the scene.
— “Munich was like the opposite of Berlin in a way. Like, it’s so conservative there, and like, the police are always super strict. It was a relief coming here.”
Ike Fromme, frontside bluntslide gap-out.
— “Do you think the general city culture is part of shaping the skate scene?”
— “Yeah, for sure. Just like, rent. In Munich, life revolves around money. The city is built on money, so you have to focus on making money in order to live there. Here in Berlin, you can still make a living with not that much money. So if you get a little bit of money here and there, some side hustling, you can still live, you know? Here, people can come just to skate. In Munich, if you don’t work full-time, or are a well-paid professional skater, there’s no way to make a living there.”
Roland Hirsch, ride-on backside smith grind.
Berlin, poor but sexy, as they say. A place where you can have the time and energy to focus on independent projects. A city helping you dare to strive for your vision. Wim Wenders himself, when he set out to make Wings of Desire, thought it would be received as an obscure art movie. Instead, he won Best Director at both the Cannes Film Festival and European Film Awards. And it’s hard not to attribute the success to Berlin itself, as what he initially set out to do was simply “to make a film about a city.” A city that seems to offer a symbiotic reciprocity between itself and its inhabitants. Facilitating an atmosphere that attracts artists, who value these conditions and further contribute to that atmosphere, and so it goes on. With that being said, if you cherish these values and conditions, never stop fighting against forces that take from it, whether it’s refusing to pander to greedy landlords or opposing inconsiderate infrastructure projects. RIP Whitey’s Bowl.
Tim Janke, Bennett grind.
Now I’m rambling again. Berlin is sick. So thinks Julian, and now he has contributed to why that is. Maybe, in another forty years, someone will look at this skate clip, study these photos, and be inspired to depict their Berlin. I’ll be curious to see what has changed then, and hope some of it has remained.
