Watch: Skate Like a Lass
Skate Like a Lass combines a short film, a collaborative photo series, and a zine that follows female and non-binary skateboarders across rural North England to explore what skateboarding has brought to their lives.
Rural England is not typically where you would expect to find a league of skaters, and yet it is here where the positive impact that skateboarding can bring to individuals and the community is most felt. Filmmaker and photographer, Juliet Klottrup had always been engrossed with the culture of skateboarding, obsessing over the zines, VHS tapes and video games alongside her brothers, and yet never saw herself represented within the pages or the films. Would she have pursued it more if she saw herself? Perhaps, but instead of tripping up over what could have been, Juliet spent over two years using her visual skills to document grassroots skateboarding communities for women and LGBTQIA+ people up north. Skate Like a Lass is an ode to the community, resilience, individuality and friendship that skating brings to the world. For those not typically and historically represented to see themselves within pages and motion is an incredibly powerful tool as we find out through chatting with Juliet below.
Okay so Skate Like a Lass was filmed in the North West of England. I assume that is where you are from? Or what is your relationship to that place?
Juliet Klottrup: Yeah, I'm based in the North West. A lot of the work I do is centred around the area, the people here and their relationship to the landscape. That's why Skate Like a Lass was created in the North West, because that's where I am.
I think often when you see skate projects depicted in the UK, they can be quite city-centric places. Obviously another part of this project, as a whole, is representation and historically what has been left out. Whether that is gender representation or race representation within a sport that has been so well documented within the male space. Skate Like a Lass became a project in an area that isn’t typically represented as well as featuring people whose voices are yet to be heard.
What is something about the North West that makes it so special?
When you think of the North West and the weather that we have… well it isn’t that good, but you think of the mountains. Skateboarding isn’t the first thing anyone thinks about, or how they might come hand in hand with this place. I have so much personal history attached to the area. I've got deep generational roots here that I really care about. There is such a mix of very rural living in big landscapes to the little towns that you just don’t imagine are going to be decorated with skaters, but it is. I find that so beautiful and interesting.
Tell me about the skate community up there.
So, the first community I met up with was in a place called the Barrow-in-Furness, which is on the Cumbrian coast. I first met this collective (Cumbria Cvven ) in a multi-story car park that was abandoned. They met there because they didn't have any funding to rent an indoor spot so instead they utilised this multi-story car park and put on this skate jam. It was incredible, just even with the amazing repurposing of space. There were skaters who had been skating a really long time who bought their own DIY ramps. There was music, snacks, just a whole community; it was incredible. Barrow isn't a place where you’d expect to see families and young women skating but here they all were.
Through this project and just being immersed in all the different collectives, what do you think creates a welcoming environment in skateboarding?
There are other skate collectives I’ve been to that are featured in Skate Like a Lass including Slag Collective, Empress Skateboarding, Big Woodys Girls Skate nights, Real Skate North West and of these groups are providing a safe space. They're providing a third space that isn't school, that isn't work and that is wholly there just to facilitate you, to support you or just to be open and have the lights on and the heating on. I think a lot of people, especially females and older skaters, arrive to skate for the first time and feel a bit insecure or nervous, but as soon as you walk through the door of these places, it all goes away because everyone is in the same boat. You end up chatting to someone that you’ve seen around and end up being associated with something that isn’t work or school which is really important as you get older.
Skate Like a Lass is a great example of bringing light to underrepresented communities. What motivates you to do that?
With film, photography and being a visual practitioner, you can use your craft as a form of communication. I think it's really important that you see yourself represented in culture. Particularly with skating, it can feel like it's not for you or you don't belong there if you don't see a version of yourself depicted doing it. It's kind of as simple as that for me. A part of me wanting to do this project really stems far back from my own experiences of skating, growing up with brothers, trying to skate in a secluded car park. Doing it for a while and then not doing it. I’ve always enjoyed the culture of skating as it seems so open but I’ve never seen myself represented. As I chatted to more mature skaters who had been skating from a young age they said they could name on one hand the amount of female professional skaters that there were when they were younger…But now you have all these young skaters who get to see so many professional skaters look like them and be able to say ‘This is a space that I exist in.’ Images and film are amazing tools to be able to do that.
What do you think skating teaches people other than the obvious physical skill?
I feel like it's a tool for empowerment and it provides freedom. The whole part of the learning process is that you have to fail. Perfectionism doesn't exist. As long as you have a supportive community around you, anytime that you do fail it doesn't feel like a big deal. It’s all a part of it. When someone's trying and trying and trying to do something, even if by the end of the session, they might not do it, they still have this squad of people around them who are bashing their skateboards on the floor the moment they almost get there, like a drum of support. But yeah I think the biggest thing is falling and failing, because you can’t skate without both of those things and it’s an amazing, empowering lesson. You’ve made yourself vulnerable by failing and falling in front of people and you learn that it’s not bad to do those things.
Also oftentimes, and I found this throughout this project, is that people are arriving at the park who are working through just incredible human experiences in their lives. Some people are navigating complicated personal situations, have families, working full-time jobs or even in emergency services, this is their way to chill out and do something for themselves. There’s a lot skating does for people and their mental health.
For sure, that’s such a beautiful way to put it. Was the plan always to do a zine or did that just naturally come about as you were putting together this project?
I'd always known that I wanted to have a film, a photo series, and a publication. I think historically when you think of skating and how that has been documented, it has been through zines and magazines so in an attempt to document skating how it is today and still honour how it has been seen previously in culture, the project really lended itself to a zine. I collaborated on the zine with my good friend, Femke Campbell, who is a really talented graphic designer.
I went so deep into the archives of early skateboarding magazines, self made zines, while creating all these images and giving cameras to skaters so they could self-document as well. It was really important to have it in a printed archive.When I was researching all these early 70s skate mags, which were predominantly male authored, what was really fascinating was that the conversations around skate harassment were really to do with the nuisance of skating in public. Whereas the conversations and stories I’ve heard throughout this project are so different now, it’s all about feeling safe in a space.
On that note of how skating has evolved, what would you like to see more of within the skate community?
I think from the experience of this project, the biggest thing would be that these grassroots groups are being supported and have access to funding. I think about the sessions that are being put on after school and on the weekend and for those groups to have the assurance that the building that they want to rent, there's a means to do that. If they want to provide snacks and they're able to do that, to keep people fed and warm. These collectives are the best of humanity, bringing people in, being so open, inclusive and supportive. For some of the young skaters these are pivotal years that really shape you and to have a support system in your life like this is really important. So I just think more support and more funding, yeah.
Amen to that. And what else are you working on now that Skate Like a Lass is out in the world?
This one is a never ending story for me. I’m still going to skate jams and documenting and I’m always working on other projects. It takes a few years to put these kinds of projects together and also a lot of other people’s time so it never really ends. But I've recently been nominated as a finalist with the Sony Future Filmmaker Prize where I get to go to LA to workshop a film I’m working on called Travelling Home, which is another North West based non-fiction project. So I’m really excited to acquire all this learning and then come back to the North West and apply it to the work that I want to do here. That's what's ahead of me.
Wow, congratulations. You seem like you have a lot going on for you and honestly you’ve made some incredible work that you should be very proud of.
Thank you. Also thank you so much for this too. Monster Children is huge. The skaters in this film will be so happy so thank you, I’m really grateful.
