PREMIERE / Zeropolis "LOCAL"
Zeropolis skateshop has been persisting in Lille, Northern France, for over twenty years now.
Lille is one of those places where the local, both meteorological and architectural conditions essentially require a certain degree of passion in anyone there trying to take up skateboarding, in such a landscape of wet bricks (formerly the regional norm before the edification of skateparks such as Halle de Glisse: one of Europe's first modern "street parks", the avant-garde construction of which was tackled as early as 2005, just as every European skater and their neighbor were getting sick of prefab ramps).
The motivation we're talking seems unwilling to discriminate against specific generations, judging from the impression resulting from this new (Zeropolis) video production: "Local" is a twenty-one-minute audiovisual collage in mostly high definition, carefully crafted by Thomas Larive.
Quite below the radar of most, the Zeropolis team roster has been low-key demonstrating the diversity of its talents in international media for years; being an authentic skater-owned institution, it comes with no surprise that said roster comprises some high profiles such as Florentin Marfaing who, here, continues to perfect his technicity - seemingly with complete disregard of the toll the passing years are supposed to put on the average human body, whilst Olivier "Tavu" Ente wanders in between his hometown of Lille and Paris, his adoptive lands, to mark the occasion of one particularly inspired video segment.
Now those guys have been at it for a while but the next shift is already repping, too, notably counting Simon Volpoet whose style has matured interestingly well since the 2006 Teenage Tour, Valentin Bauer who apparently considers Tyshawn Jones a full-on discipline, and various other more-or-less-young folks who, too, like to bite and take on the hook of obsessive dedication to hostile urban settings.
A few years back, Zeropolis was already dropping "XV YEARS", a recap of their first fifteen years of existence intertwined with glimpses into the Lille scene of the times. As a complementary history lesson, today, LIVE is suggesting you this independent video by local legend Sylvain Stricanne (aka. Coach59): "Lillois Skateboard", a home-brewed production dating back to year 1994 featuring, amongst others, one-of-a-kind DDE technician Hervé Coneim, and O.G.'s such as Vince Vernier or Alex Van Hoecke.
Nearing the dawn of 2020, in between the raindrops and the local grounds' various staccatos, Zeropolis is still pushing.
