Skatenerds rejoice! There’s now a skateable museum in Finland, specially designed so that skaters can actually incorporate themselves into the exhibit. Artist Rich Holland came up with the exhibition, titled “At First We Take Museums,” and installed it at the Kiasma Museum of Modern Art in Finland. His aim? To combine physical pleasure with visual pleasure, and to elevate skating from a sport to an art.
Explains Holland in an interview with Kiasma, “The issue of public space is important to me. There is becoming less and less of these free areas in most western cities, especially London where I live. Corporations and organizations are channelling more resources into creating areas that are aimed at making the public consume. The area along the river Thames in London is a perfect example of this privatization of space, as Southbank is now re-developing its open space purely to accommodate space for commercial properties.”
By reimagining the previously hallowed space of the museum into a full-contact arena, Holland’s work shows that access to public space is an issue virtually everywhere — and it’s going to take creative solutions to resolve it. [MocoLoco]
