Mumbai Skateboards

German curator Tobias Megerle came up with the idea to let a dozen Mahim woodcarvers from Mumbai, India, produce their own traditional skateboards.

As an artist I was driven to do something with these woodcarvers and their work. I visited the workshops several times and after a series of thoughts I hit upon the object to be combined with the traditional woodwork - the good old skateboard. In Mumbai the skateboard is, in many places, more than just a piece of sports equipment.

It's an entire lifestyle that's created around it, a unique music style, special clothes, whole skater-parks. Invariably all commercially-available skateboards are artistically designed, mostly with graphics, spray paintings, printed, often in a comic style.

(via Everlasting Blort)