Mumbai Skateboards

from CreativeRoots

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

This is how cool Indian wood cutting can become. Tobias Megerle came up with the idea to let a dozen Mahim woodcarvers from Mumbai to produce their own traditional skateboards.

“The very first time I drove past I was magically attracted to the carved wooden objects in Mahim, all the open workshops, the woodcarvers sitting on the floor with their traditional tools, working on their items, the whole atmosphere,” says Megerle.

As an artist I wa driven to do something with these woodcarvers and their work. I visited the workshops several times to study their craft and always thought to myself: ‘Wonderful, but a bit dowdy, a bit frumpy.’ All the nice ornamented chairs, divan beds, frames and what else I know not… some in the typical colonial style.

After a series of thoughts I hit upon the object to be combined with the traditional woodwork — the good old skateboard. In Mumbai – though almost completely unknown – 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.”



The project “Final Cut” will be showcased at THE LOFT at Lower Parel.