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<strong>UK</strong> EDITION<br />
SEPTEMBER <strong>2020</strong>, £3.50<br />
BEYOND THE ORDINARY<br />
SUBSCRIBE: GETREDBULLETIN.COM<br />
CARNIVAL<br />
STATE OF<br />
MIND<br />
How Notting Hill<br />
Carnival became<br />
much more than<br />
a street party
MANY PATHS. ONE TRAIL.<br />
MQM FLEX 2<br />
MERRELL.COM<br />
@MERRELLEU
Editor’s letter<br />
WORKS IN<br />
PROGRESS<br />
CONTRIBUTORS<br />
THIS ISSUE<br />
How to navigate testing times and, at the same<br />
time, find positive outcomes is a challenge we’re<br />
all facing right now to some extent. And it’s one<br />
that many of the stars of this month’s issue of<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Red</strong> <strong>Bulletin</strong> are managing to rise to.<br />
News that the physical celebration of London’s<br />
Notting Hill Carnival (page 30), the biggest event<br />
of its kind in Europe, was to be cancelled this<br />
year for the first time left many crestfallen. But,<br />
as our cover feature shows, Carnival is a lot more<br />
than a street party: it’s a state of mind that those<br />
at its heart carry into everyday life. Not only<br />
have the organisers created something uplifting<br />
with their digital offering for <strong>2020</strong>, it’s estimated<br />
that more people than ever will attend this year,<br />
sampling Carnival culture from their homes.<br />
Photographer Pablo Allison (page 42) had a lifechanging<br />
experience in the unexpected setting<br />
of a Mexican freight train. <strong>The</strong> British artist<br />
says that, despite being imprisoned and held<br />
at gunpoint, riding on top of these fast-moving<br />
trains to document the journeys of thousands<br />
of migrants is making him a better person.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n there’s the group of the women pushing<br />
back against economic and social restrictions in<br />
Athens as they rediscover the city together on<br />
roller skates (page 48), offering each other support,<br />
solidarity and, most important of all, fun.<br />
And Canadian cave-diver Jill Heinerth<br />
(page 56) knowingly enters difficult waters on<br />
her deep dives into barely accessible caves. But,<br />
she says, the thrill of discovering the unknown<br />
makes the risks well worthwhile.<br />
We hope you enjoy the issue.<br />
CHIIZII<br />
“My relationship with Notting<br />
Hill Carnival has always been<br />
one of joy, freedom and<br />
celebration,” says the<br />
London-born visual artist<br />
and designer, who illustrated<br />
our cover and feature on<br />
Carnival. “Incorporating<br />
imagery and producing<br />
illustrations that are true<br />
to its Caribbean origin and<br />
Black British progression<br />
was not debatable.” Page 30<br />
ALEX KING<br />
<strong>The</strong> British journalist and<br />
documentary filmmaker<br />
moved to Athens in 2017.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re he met female rollerskate<br />
crew Chicks in Bowls,<br />
who became the subject of<br />
a short film, and a feature in<br />
this month’s issue. “I wanted<br />
to show Athens in a way<br />
outsiders haven’t seen it<br />
before,” says King. “<strong>The</strong><br />
result is thanks to the girls.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y really pushed hard and<br />
gave everything!” Page 48<br />
CHIIZII (COVER ARTWORK) SEYE ISIKALU, ALAMY (COVER)<br />
04 THE RED BULLETIN
CONTENTS<br />
<strong>September</strong> <strong>2020</strong><br />
6 Canyon fire: good times in the<br />
birthplace of freestyle MTB<br />
8 Subway surfer: skateboarding the<br />
escalators of Frankfurt’s U-Bahn<br />
10 Rust and play: the WWII wreck<br />
that’s a magnet for Cuban surfers<br />
12 Slack jaws: how one man and his<br />
highwire stunned an Italian village<br />
15 Comedy gold: musician and<br />
stand-up comic Reggie Watts<br />
on what makes him laugh<br />
17 Making music: the machine that<br />
lets you cut and play your own<br />
vinyl records at home<br />
18 <strong>The</strong> Z-Triton: is it a tricycle, or<br />
a boat? Answer: both – and you<br />
can have a kip in it, too<br />
20 Chain reaction: love it or hate it,<br />
there’s no ignoring the divisive<br />
ebike named the Babymaker<br />
MARK LEAVER<br />
22 Jehnny Beth<br />
Talking fears and fantasies with<br />
the multitalented Savages star<br />
24 Gaika<br />
<strong>The</strong> electronic musician who’s<br />
changing the world for the better<br />
26 Jasmin Paris<br />
Snow, exhaustion, pregnancy<br />
– nothing stops this ultrarunner<br />
30 Notting Hill Carnival<br />
Six decades on, it remains<br />
a celebration like no other<br />
42 Pablo Allison<br />
Highlighting the plight of Mexican<br />
migrants in film and graffiti paint<br />
48 CIB Athens<br />
We tear up tarmac with the<br />
all-woman roller-skate crew<br />
56 Jill Heinerth<br />
A deep dive into the Canadian<br />
explorer’s underwater world<br />
68 Fabio Wibmer<br />
From motocross prodigy to<br />
YouTube bike-trick sensation<br />
79 Four months, 10 countries,<br />
more than 11,000km, in<br />
temperatures of 35°C upwards:<br />
the epic continent-crossing<br />
bike adventure known as the<br />
Tour d’Afrique is a punishing<br />
but unmissable experience<br />
83 Graphic statement: a stack of<br />
skateboards inspired by street art<br />
84 Flash point: how strobe therapy<br />
is supercharging the training<br />
and performance of athletes<br />
85 Worth the weight: are you ready<br />
for the smart kettlebell?<br />
86 Rock the block: sound-system<br />
tech for the ultimate house party<br />
48<br />
Greece-ing the wheels: meet the women roller skaters who<br />
are reclaiming the streets and skateparks of Athens<br />
88 Drive time: watches that belong<br />
behind the wheel<br />
89 Glare free: this summer’s most<br />
desirable sunglasses<br />
90 Taking control: all you need<br />
for gaming on the go<br />
91 Game of life: lessons in stoicism<br />
from <strong>The</strong> Last of Us, Part II<br />
94 Essential dates for your calendar<br />
98 Leaps and bounds: parkour<br />
shenanigans in Panama<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 05
STEPHEN SHANNON/RED BULL ILLUME<br />
FARWELL CANYON,<br />
BC, CANADA<br />
Canny<br />
valley<br />
Shooting in Farwell Canyon – a location<br />
he describes as “the birthplace of freeride<br />
mountain biking” – has been a longtime<br />
ambition for British Columbia native Steve<br />
Shannon. Following several failed attempts,<br />
the photographer finally realised his wish<br />
in April last year, accompanied by local<br />
shredder and bike mechanic Cory ‘Coco’<br />
Brunelle. “Hiking out to the top of the line<br />
pre-dawn, we were greeted by a beautiful<br />
sunrise over the Chilcotin River,” he says.<br />
“Having grown up nearby, Coco is very<br />
comfortable riding down the chutes of<br />
Farwell, letting out a little style as he<br />
hurtles to the bottom.”<br />
steveshannonphoto.com<br />
07
FRANKFURT,<br />
GERMANY<br />
One step<br />
beyond<br />
This stunning image, shot prelockdown<br />
by Robert Garo on<br />
Frankfurt’s U-Bahn system, required<br />
patience from both the Croatiaborn<br />
photographer and his subject,<br />
local skater Milan Hruska. “My friend<br />
Milan works just around the corner<br />
[from the station],” says Garo, who is<br />
also based in the German city, “so we<br />
made arrangements to do the shoot.<br />
But we’d underestimated how much<br />
traffic there is during the normal<br />
evening rush hour. In the end, we had<br />
to wait a few hours, until we were<br />
almost alone, to get the final picture.”<br />
robertgaro.net
ROBERT GARO/RED BULL ILLUME<br />
09
WILL SAUNDERS/RED BULL ILLUME<br />
BARACOA, CUBA<br />
Wreck<br />
star<br />
Utah-based photographer Will<br />
Saunders had been documenting a<br />
crew of surfers and skaters in Cuba<br />
for a fortnight when they took him<br />
to one of their favourite spots.<br />
“I couldn’t believe it,” Saunders says<br />
of the rusted wreck. “This place felt<br />
like a spot out of Tony Hawk’s Pro<br />
Skater. We spent the entire morning<br />
making images of this unique wave<br />
and surfing until the swell was gone.<br />
<strong>The</strong> game of this wave is to try to<br />
surf under the bow of the boat while<br />
dragging your hand along its hull<br />
– without getting tetanus. Yojany<br />
[Pérez, the surfer pictured] made<br />
it look too easy.”<br />
willsaundersphoto.com<br />
11
MATTEO PAVANA/RED BULL ILLUME
CASTELMEZZANO,<br />
ITALY<br />
Crossed<br />
lines<br />
Regarded to be one of the<br />
most beautiful villages in Italy,<br />
Castelmezzano in the southern<br />
province of Potenza is a magnet<br />
for tourists. But here was a sight<br />
that neither visitors nor locals<br />
had expected to see: slackliner<br />
Benjamin Kofler walking high above<br />
the rooftops. “Even with the general<br />
noise, I could hear the comments of<br />
the crowd gathered in the Piazza<br />
Emilio Caizzo,” reports Italian<br />
photographer Matteo Pavana, who<br />
took this shot. “One lady at the edge<br />
of the square cried, ‘Oh my God,<br />
I can’t watch those crazy freaks!’”<br />
theverticaleye.com<br />
13
Copyright © <strong>2020</strong> MNA, Inc. All rights reserved.<br />
THE TRACK DOESN’T<br />
MAKE ITSELF FAMOUS.<br />
WHAT ARE YOU BUILDING FOR?<br />
150 years of engineering progress. Check it out at www.BFGoodrichTires.com/150years .
REGGIE WATTS<br />
Playing<br />
for<br />
laughs<br />
<strong>The</strong> versatile US musician<br />
and comic gives his pick<br />
of comedy’s innovators,<br />
past and present<br />
He may be best known as James<br />
Corden’s bandleader on <strong>The</strong> Late<br />
Late Show, but US musician and<br />
comedian Reggie Watts is an allround<br />
entertainer. <strong>The</strong> 48-year-old<br />
made his name performing<br />
experimental stand-up – check out<br />
his 2016 surrealist Netflix special<br />
Spatial – before diversifying into<br />
everything from voice work for<br />
Star Wars: <strong>The</strong> Rise of Skywalker<br />
to launching his own app,<br />
WattsApp, where fans can watch<br />
exclusive content and buy his<br />
unwanted tech gear. On a musical<br />
note, in February this year Watts<br />
and dance producer John Tejada<br />
released a second album of soulful<br />
electronica as Wajatta. Here, Watts<br />
(pictured on the right, with Tejada)<br />
salutes the comedians who broke<br />
new ground and, crucially,<br />
continue to make him laugh…<br />
reggiewatts.com<br />
George Carlin<br />
Class Clown (1972)<br />
Eddie Murphy<br />
Raw (1987)<br />
Whitmer Thomas<br />
<strong>The</strong> Golden One (<strong>2020</strong>)<br />
Eddie Murphy<br />
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)<br />
THE1POINT8 PIERS MARTIN<br />
“Carlin was a philosopher<br />
comedian. His monologue<br />
Seven Words You Can Never<br />
Say on Television showed me<br />
there are other ways to think<br />
about things. A word is a word,<br />
but how is it said and what’s<br />
the context, what’s its origin?<br />
He gave me deeper realisation.<br />
His message is deep in my<br />
operating system.”<br />
“Eddie Murphy invented the<br />
rock-star comedian. When he<br />
came onstage in the all-leather<br />
outfit, to people screaming like<br />
[he was] <strong>The</strong> Beatles, that was<br />
incredible. I heard the cassette<br />
of Raw before I saw the video –<br />
I was 15, on an orchestra trip in<br />
Montana. I loved it because he<br />
was speaking freely and using<br />
a lot of profanity.”<br />
“I tend to avoid books and<br />
comedy specials, because I’m<br />
an improviser and I don’t want<br />
to accidentally use an idea.<br />
But I did catch this HBO special<br />
by Whitmer Thomas. He talks<br />
about mental health issues<br />
and is a very earnest open<br />
book, so it’s comedy but also<br />
drenched in melancholia. He’s<br />
raw and honest, and I like that.”<br />
“That whole [early-’80s] period<br />
for Murphy – Trading Places,<br />
Coming to America, 48 Hours<br />
– was insane, but Beverly<br />
Hills Cop is a perfect movie.<br />
I remember watching the<br />
opening action sequence and<br />
laughing and losing my mind.<br />
He was so cool in his dope<br />
sunglasses and those tight<br />
’80s jeans that fit perfectly.”<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 15
WIIINGS FOR<br />
YOUR SUMMER.<br />
WITH THE TASTE OF WATERMELON.<br />
VITALIZES BODY AND MIND.
Go, cut<br />
creator, go:<br />
the mini<br />
dubplate is<br />
finally an<br />
achievable<br />
dream<br />
GAKKEN, PENTAGRAM LOU BOYD<br />
When Yuri Suzuki was a highschool<br />
student in ’90s Tokyo,<br />
he was obsessed with two<br />
things: punk music and vinyl.<br />
“Making a machine to create<br />
my own records was always a<br />
dream for me,” the 40-year-old<br />
Japanese sound artist says.<br />
“As a student, I tried to mend<br />
old cutting machines from junk<br />
sales, but they didn’t work.”<br />
Three decades on, he has<br />
realised his dream, inventing<br />
a device that can cut and play<br />
homemade records.<br />
Suzuki’s Instant Record<br />
Cutting Machine – created<br />
in collaboration with Gakken,<br />
a maker of educational toys<br />
– features two arms: one for<br />
scoring grooves into the vinyl,<br />
the other for playback. “You use<br />
your phone’s headphone jack<br />
to connect via USB,” he says.<br />
“It’s quite a primitive process:<br />
the audio becomes information<br />
in the form of vibrations, and<br />
the stylus engraves this into the<br />
vinyl. This project isn’t about<br />
making super hi-fi equipment;<br />
it sounds DIY and lo-fi.”<br />
Some people are also using it<br />
to create new music. “<strong>The</strong>re’s<br />
a DJ who records breaks with<br />
the machine during live sets,”<br />
says Suzuki. “He quickly cuts<br />
them onto a 5in [13cm] record,<br />
which he then uses in his set,<br />
so the record maker is almost<br />
a musical instrument.” Others<br />
have used different surfaces:<br />
“One thing I wasn’t expecting<br />
was people cutting tracks onto<br />
CDs. I’m sure all families have a<br />
bunch of old CDs they don’t use<br />
any more – now they can turn<br />
them into unique 5in records.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> death of vinyl has long<br />
been touted, but with each year<br />
interest seems to grow. “As a<br />
teenager, I was always making<br />
mixtapes for my friends,” says<br />
Suzuki. “It’s that feeling that<br />
makes people still love vinyl.<br />
Sending an online song doesn’t<br />
feel valuable, but a physical<br />
record you need to place the<br />
needle on – especially one<br />
you’ve made yourself – that<br />
still feels quite special.”<br />
yurisuzuki.com/design-studio/<br />
easyrecordmaker<br />
RECORD-CUTTING MACHINE<br />
Vinyl fantasy<br />
Digital streaming killed the homemade<br />
mixtape. But one audio buff has revived the<br />
personal touch with his latest invention<br />
Stylus icon: Suzuki and his IRCM (as we like to call it)<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 17
<strong>The</strong> Z-Triton:<br />
imagine the<br />
Transformers<br />
movies<br />
remade on a<br />
tight budget<br />
Z-TRITON<br />
Floating an idea<br />
Applying the tiny-home concept to adventure travel, this amphibious<br />
tricycle/caravan could be the answer to self-distancing holidays<br />
A few years ago, when Latvian<br />
urban designer Aigars Lauzis<br />
conceived the Z-Triton – a mix<br />
of boat, electric tricycle and<br />
adventure van – the idea of<br />
travelling in a self-contained<br />
mini-cabin would have<br />
appeared odd to most people.<br />
But fast-forward to <strong>2020</strong>, and<br />
as the global pandemic stalls<br />
the world’s travel plans, Lauzis’<br />
invention seems prescient.<br />
<strong>The</strong> concept came to Lauzis<br />
during a four-year, 30,000km<br />
cycling trip from London to<br />
Tokyo as he pondered how to<br />
recreate his journey as a family<br />
experience. “I came up with<br />
the idea for an amphibious tiny<br />
home that is completely solarpowered<br />
and electric,” he says.<br />
“You can cycle, sail and be fully<br />
immersed in nature, with a little<br />
camper to sleep in.”<br />
Cabin<br />
fever: all<br />
the thrills<br />
of cycling<br />
around the<br />
world and<br />
sleeping<br />
under the<br />
stars, but<br />
without the<br />
tent pegs<br />
It may look like an big toy boat,<br />
but the Z-Triton squeezes in a<br />
lot of technology. <strong>The</strong> trike can<br />
navigate terrain at 40kph, and<br />
it turns into a motorboat for<br />
freshwater sailing. <strong>The</strong> cabin<br />
has its own lights, heating, and<br />
cooking facilities. Out front,<br />
there’s room for one passenger<br />
while the other cycles, with an<br />
extra seat available for pets.<br />
This is far from Lauzis’ first<br />
‘big idea’; previous projects<br />
include a trailer that becomes a<br />
narrow boat, and the Z-Bioloo –<br />
an outdoor toilet that composts<br />
human waste to feed a lavender<br />
bed on its roof, then funnels<br />
the fragrant floral air back in<br />
as a natural air freshener.<br />
Lauzis hopes the Z-Triton will<br />
inspire a new trend in humanpowered<br />
adventure travel.<br />
“While it is electrically assisted,<br />
you burn your own battery,” he<br />
says, “I want to be fit and power<br />
my adventures with my own<br />
energy – to create something<br />
fun and a bit crazy that could<br />
tackle world problems.”<br />
zeltini.com<br />
AIGARS LAUZIS, GATIS PRIEDNIEKS-MELNACIS LOU BOYD<br />
18 THE RED BULLETIN
CYCLING LUXURY<br />
NEO METALLIC MEETS ENGINEERED DESIGN<br />
Introducing the Lezyne Neo Metallic range<br />
A new, brilliantly enhanced selection of our premium accessories.<br />
Lite Drive 1000XL<br />
<strong>The</strong> distinctive finish adds a touch of customisation to your ride that<br />
will dazzle your followers. Engineered Design never looked more bling!<br />
CNC Cage £35 | Pocket Drive Pro £45<br />
Classic Drive 700XL<br />
Hecto Drive 500XL £50 | Classic Drive £70 | Lite Drive £80<br />
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Go green:<br />
there are<br />
two models<br />
– the PRO<br />
(pictured)<br />
has higher<br />
specs<br />
BABYMAKER<br />
<strong>The</strong> Marmite bike<br />
Some cyclists adore it, others absolutely despise it. Why is this<br />
crowdfunded ebike attracting so much love and hate online?<br />
American. “<strong>The</strong>y inspired us to<br />
make something that was fast<br />
but would also make people<br />
go, ‘Whoa, what is that? I want<br />
it.’” And fast it is. With a 250w<br />
motor and a top speed of 40kph,<br />
the Babymaker is technically<br />
classified as a moped in the <strong>UK</strong><br />
and Europe, so it requires a<br />
driving licence, road tax and<br />
insurance for road-legal riding.<br />
Meanwhile, the bike<br />
industry dismissed Rast and<br />
Leaviss’ design, mocking<br />
the lack of a spec sheet or<br />
geometry chart. Other parts of<br />
the internet took offence at its<br />
name, but the duo say this was<br />
merely a means of grabbing<br />
maximum attention. It got just<br />
that, in the form of increased<br />
financial backing. “Any industry<br />
is going to be resistant to<br />
change,” says Rast, “especially<br />
when there’s money involved<br />
and it gets redistributed from<br />
the guys selling $10,000 road<br />
bikes to Pete and Rob and their<br />
crazy $1,000 ebike.”<br />
With fundraising closed,<br />
the bikes will start shipping in<br />
December. Rast is confident<br />
people will be as in love with<br />
the bike as he is. “<strong>The</strong> problem<br />
with the cycling industry is,<br />
it’s so niche that it’s no longer<br />
approachable for the average<br />
person,” he says. “You’re not<br />
going to put the Babymaker<br />
in the Tour de France. We’re<br />
just here to have some fun.”<br />
flx.bike<br />
Rarely has a cycling product<br />
divided opinion as sharply as<br />
the Babymaker, from San<br />
Diego-based startup FLX Bike.<br />
<strong>The</strong> brightly coloured ebike<br />
concept raised more than<br />
£10 million on IndieGoGo –<br />
the largest amount on the<br />
crowdfunding platform this<br />
year so far – but before the<br />
first prototypes had even<br />
shipped, it had received a lot of<br />
negative feedback from inside<br />
and outside the bike industry.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Babymaker is the<br />
brainchild of Rob Rast and<br />
Peter Leaviss, who met by<br />
chance while sofa-surfing in<br />
China. “I was a college dropout<br />
who bought a one-way ticket in<br />
2009 to learn about life,” says<br />
Rast. “I got a message from<br />
this British guy who wanted to<br />
rent my room out. Peter shows<br />
up at 2am and we hit it off.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> pair bonded over their<br />
joint love of “bikes, speed and<br />
adventure”, resulting in the<br />
concept for a new type of ebike<br />
that harnesses the power of an<br />
engine in something as sleek as<br />
a city single-speed. “We were<br />
seeing all these little electric<br />
scooters around,” says the<br />
Baby fathers: Rob Rast (left) and Peter Leaviss of FLX Bike<br />
STEALINGLIGHT PRODUCTIONS LOU BOYD<br />
20 THE RED BULLETIN
Jehnny Beth<br />
Renaissance<br />
woman<br />
<strong>The</strong> multitalented Savages singer says she<br />
likes doing the wrong thing. Judging by her<br />
latest work, that impulse is steering her right<br />
Words MARCEL ANDERS<br />
Photography XAVIER ARIAS<br />
Jehnny Beth, best known as the<br />
frontwoman of <strong>UK</strong> post-punk band<br />
Savages, is sitting at her home in<br />
Paris mid-lockdown, pondering<br />
positives of the new normal. “Maybe<br />
we need to reset our priorities,” she<br />
says. “This might make us realise we<br />
need to slow down a bit.”<br />
It’s hard to imagine Beth – real<br />
name Camille Berthomier – slowing<br />
down. <strong>The</strong> 35-year-old is a social<br />
animal, which she attributes to<br />
mingling with creative types – her<br />
parents were theatre directors – at<br />
the family home in Poitiers, western<br />
France, during her youth. It’s partly<br />
why she now hosts Echoes, a chat<br />
show on the European TV network<br />
ARTE, for which she’s interviewed the<br />
likes of Primal Scream and IDLES.<br />
“I love it,” she says. “I always feel<br />
inspired after talking to other artists<br />
about what they do.”<br />
Beth also hosts a radio show on<br />
Beats 1; acts in arthouse movies;<br />
plays in another band, John & Jehn;<br />
runs her own label; released her<br />
debut solo album, To Love Is To Live,<br />
in June; and has just published<br />
a collection of erotic short stories,<br />
titled C.A.L.M: Crimes Against Love<br />
Memories. Here, she talks about<br />
the challenge of change, her love<br />
of risk-taking, and why we should<br />
all embrace our fantasies…<br />
the red bulletin: You have a lot<br />
of projects on the go. How many<br />
outlets does Jehnny Beth need?<br />
jehnny beth: I think it’s all down<br />
to curiosity. When people come with<br />
a project unlike anything I’ve done<br />
before, I think, “Why not?” I have<br />
no idea if I’m up to the task, but I’m<br />
going to do everything I can to make<br />
it work. Sometimes you do things<br />
that are a bit out of character, but<br />
I feel that the world is a little bit<br />
more accepting of that nowadays.<br />
You recently released your solo<br />
debut. What prompted that?<br />
It was time for me to take a risk. I<br />
didn’t want to be the kind of singer<br />
who is enslaved to a band. I wanted<br />
to see what I was worth on my own.<br />
It felt like a risk, and I was definitely<br />
advised that it might be, but that’s<br />
something I’ve often heard during<br />
my career. I like the sensation of<br />
starting from scratch, of doing the<br />
wrong thing – it’s kind of exciting.<br />
<strong>The</strong> album focuses on your fears<br />
and insecurities. Was it difficult<br />
turning the spotlight on yourself?<br />
If I was going to make a personal<br />
record, I had to commit to showing<br />
every part of myself, even those<br />
I was most ashamed of. “If you’re<br />
going to try, go all the way” – that’s<br />
the [Charles] Bukowski line, isn’t it?<br />
That doesn’t mean there was no<br />
resistance; I think every human<br />
being fights against change initially.<br />
But I don’t want to make art or<br />
music that isn’t going to change me.<br />
Was that also the allure of your<br />
music chat show, Echoes?<br />
[Talking to other musicians] is<br />
something I do anyway; if I like a<br />
new artist, I’ll write to them and say,<br />
“Hey, I love what you’re doing.”<br />
When I started Savages, artists like<br />
Henry Rollins, Ian MacKaye [both<br />
US punk icons] and PJ Harvey<br />
would come and talk to me. <strong>The</strong>ir<br />
generosity influenced me – having<br />
that openness to just tap someone<br />
on the shoulder and say, “Hey, I’m<br />
here, I see you, I see what you’re<br />
doing, and I have questions.”<br />
What inspired your new collection<br />
of erotic short stories?<br />
I’m interested in the subject of<br />
sexuality, and in fantasies and the<br />
part that imagination plays in them.<br />
It all started when Johnny Hostile<br />
[Beth’s longtime partner and<br />
producer] and I moved to Paris<br />
three years ago. He picked up<br />
photography as a new medium and<br />
took pictures of me and friends.<br />
<strong>The</strong> images deal with the subject of<br />
sexuality and the liberation of the<br />
body. Suddenly, I realised people<br />
are free to speak and share and talk<br />
about their fantasies, and I thought<br />
that was kind of a goldmine for<br />
writing. Not that it’s a new subject<br />
– erotic literature is enormous.<br />
What were you hoping to add to<br />
the genre?<br />
I think young people are very<br />
interested in finding new modes of<br />
loving. All I’m trying to do is observe<br />
and offer alternatives to family, to<br />
monogamy, to this generational<br />
inheritance that creates a form of<br />
imprisonment. If we want to talk<br />
about women’s liberation, we have<br />
to talk about the liberation of the<br />
couple, of the relationship – I think<br />
they go hand in hand.<br />
So we should explore our fantasies?<br />
Why not? I don’t think there’s a<br />
reason to oppress them – that’s<br />
definitely not healthy. I believe it’s<br />
better to be creative with them.<br />
Ever considered becoming more<br />
of a writer than a performer?<br />
I definitely feel that I want to write<br />
more. I’ve got another idea for a<br />
book. I don’t know if it will get me<br />
anywhere, but you have to try.<br />
Which goes back to taking risks…<br />
Yeah. You’ve just got to make the<br />
most of life. Enjoy it to the fullest.<br />
Jehnny Beth’s book C.A.L.M: Crimes<br />
Against Love Memories is out now;<br />
jehnnybeth.com<br />
22 THE RED BULLETIN
”I don’t want<br />
to make art<br />
or music that<br />
isn’t going to<br />
change me”<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 23
Gaika<br />
Power is in<br />
our hands<br />
Gaika is a visionary musician and activist on<br />
a mission to make the world better. Here, the<br />
Londoner reveals how we all can take part<br />
Words FLORIAN OBKIRCHER<br />
For Gaika Tavares, life and art are<br />
intrinsically linked. Some musicians<br />
provide the listener with a lighthearted<br />
escape from the world’s<br />
turmoil; the South-London based<br />
artist, director and political activist<br />
known simply as Gaika, does the<br />
opposite. With futuristic tunes<br />
that blend dancehall, rap and<br />
experimental R&B, Gaika processes<br />
his observations and experiences<br />
as a Black man living in the <strong>UK</strong>.<br />
This approach has earned the<br />
30-year-old a reputation as electronic<br />
music’s dark prophet. On Blasphemer,<br />
a song from his 2015 debut mixtape,<br />
the son of Jamaican and Grenadian<br />
parents repeats the line “I can’t<br />
breathe”, a sentence that gained<br />
tragic notoriety after the killing of<br />
American George Floyd in May this<br />
year. In his 2017 short story <strong>The</strong><br />
Spectacular Empire, Gaika envisions<br />
cities shaken by demonstrations and<br />
civil unrest over police brutality.<br />
However, on Seguridad, the<br />
follow-up to his critically acclaimed<br />
2018 debut album Basic Volume,<br />
optimism prevails. Gaika sees the<br />
current situation as an opportunity<br />
to make the world a fairer place.<br />
the red bulletin: Do you think<br />
the perception of your music as<br />
dark and apocalyptic is fair?<br />
gaika: I get frustrated when people<br />
view my work that way. I don’t think<br />
my songs are negative. I focus on the<br />
future, like, “OK, what can we do<br />
now?” We’re at a juncture where we<br />
decide what happens in this new<br />
version of the world. And that starts<br />
with the people. That starts with<br />
mutual aid, with looking at our<br />
neighbours, our friends and family<br />
and believing we have collective<br />
power. I’ve always felt that we can<br />
change things for the better.<br />
Your recent Nine Nights project<br />
[a series of live-streamed events<br />
in aid of Black-focused charities]<br />
seems a good example…<br />
I don’t believe that charity is the<br />
answer, but at the same time I have<br />
to ask the question: what are the<br />
real fruits of my labour, and who<br />
does it benefit? All the money that<br />
comes from people who want to<br />
listen to my songs, where does it<br />
end up? It ends up on the wrist of<br />
some hedge-fund guy. Let’s get real,<br />
that’s what happens in music. And<br />
I believe our creative labour should<br />
be used to benefit artists and the<br />
communities they’ve come from.<br />
But don’t you need the likes of<br />
Spotify to increase your audience<br />
and spread this message further?<br />
I was signed to [renowned electronic<br />
music label] Warp Records, and<br />
they made their business rely on<br />
Spotify. I didn’t agree with that, so<br />
I’m no longer signed to Warp. It’s<br />
that simple. Yes, I want to be heard<br />
by a lot of people, but what’s more<br />
important to me is actually being<br />
able to make a valuable contribution<br />
to our society. I speak through<br />
platforms like <strong>Red</strong> Bull because<br />
I think it’s important that my<br />
message gets heard, but at the same<br />
time I’m doing things in my life to<br />
balance that. In that way, in some<br />
sense we hold these entities to<br />
account. I focus on the positive<br />
bits I can do, rather than thinking,<br />
“Oh, it’s hopeless.”<br />
What if artists feel they’re too<br />
small to have an influence?<br />
I don’t believe market forces are<br />
sacred. It’s only human beings who<br />
make the decisions in these big<br />
companies. If we can influence those<br />
decisions, we’ve got our part to play.<br />
Ultimately, we have the power –<br />
we’re the ones who make the songs<br />
that the people like. It’s just about<br />
whether you do the harder thing<br />
or [you’re happy] to live in this<br />
bubble of materialism and non-stop<br />
hedonism. I don’t want to stand in<br />
judgement of people, but for me<br />
it’s not a difficult decision.<br />
Can music can be a positive force<br />
for change in the current climate?<br />
I don’t think it’s the only way, but it<br />
has a part to play. I mean, what are<br />
we doing? This coronavirus thing,<br />
it showed we’re not invincible. Like,<br />
humanity can get into situations<br />
of danger. So, are we going to live<br />
together, or will we continue to<br />
exploit the earth and motor towards<br />
extinction? And those of us who are<br />
good at communicating – artists,<br />
musicians – what are we trying to<br />
say? What do we do with the wealth<br />
that music generates? I think music<br />
is definitely part of this moment.<br />
How can consumers of music<br />
make a difference?<br />
I don’t aim to preach, but it comes<br />
down to this: where you spend your<br />
money has an impact. If you spend<br />
your money with people who are<br />
engaged in conscious business, we<br />
can force bigger companies to do<br />
the same and stop destroying the<br />
natural environment or tolerating<br />
racism. We’ve always been told we’ll<br />
never be able to compete with big<br />
businesses, but I don’t think that’s<br />
true. People pay attention, they look<br />
at a company’s behaviour, and they<br />
decide if they want to support them<br />
with their money. That is power,<br />
and we need to make use of it.<br />
Gaika’s latest album, Seguridad,<br />
is out now on NAAFI, the label run<br />
by the socially active Mexican DJ<br />
collective of the same name;<br />
naafi.bandcamp.com<br />
EMMANUEL S<br />
24 THE RED BULLETIN
“I’ve always<br />
felt that we<br />
can change<br />
things for<br />
the better”<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 25
Jasmin Paris<br />
Tough mother<br />
<strong>The</strong> British ultrarunning champion on how<br />
having a child gave her the motivation to win<br />
Words FLORIAN OBKIRCHER<br />
of mud; you see animals like foxes<br />
and birds, too. I really like running<br />
up a hill with the challenge of<br />
reaching the top, the feeling of<br />
acceleration, of running along<br />
a ridge and it stretching in all<br />
directions. And then there’s the<br />
sunrise. I find it hard to imagine<br />
a situation better than that.<br />
In January last year, British runner<br />
Jasmin Paris became the first<br />
woman to win the Spine Race, a<br />
gruelling 431km ultramarathon<br />
along the Pennine Way – crossing<br />
the hills known as “the backbone of<br />
England” – from the Peak District<br />
to just inside the Scottish border.<br />
She completed the course in 83<br />
hours and 12 minutes, smashing the<br />
previous men’s record by more than<br />
12 hours and beating her nearest<br />
male rival by 15 hours. It was one<br />
of the best moments of her life, but<br />
not the greatest – that would be<br />
giving birth to her daughter, Rowan,<br />
just over a year earlier. Paris spent<br />
her rest stops at aid stations along<br />
the route, expressing milk for her<br />
then 13-month-old child.<br />
Amazingly, the 36-year-old<br />
doesn’t consider herself a<br />
professional athlete, despite having<br />
achieved a number of race records<br />
in her career, winning the British<br />
Fell Running Championship in 2015<br />
and 2018, and taking the crown<br />
in the Sky Extreme category of<br />
the 2016 Skyrunner World Series.<br />
“I have a talent for endurance and<br />
long-distance running, but I’m a<br />
normal person with a full-time job,”<br />
says Paris, who works as a vet at the<br />
University of Edinburgh. “I just do<br />
the thing I love, alongside work,<br />
and with a child running around.<br />
I eat normal food, and I drink<br />
alcohol when I’m not pregnant.”<br />
To compete in the Spine Race,<br />
she had to take a week off from her<br />
PhD in veterinary science. And yet,<br />
it’s the narrative of Paris as a new<br />
mother besting men at their own<br />
game that grabbed the headlines.<br />
Her victory in the Spine Race came<br />
in a year that saw a number of<br />
women triumph in previously<br />
male-dominated ultra-disciplines<br />
– among them, German cyclist<br />
Fiona Kolbinger, who won the<br />
Transcontinental Race through<br />
Europe (4,000km in just over<br />
10 days), and US swimmer Sarah<br />
Thomas, who became the first<br />
person to swim the English Channel<br />
four times non-stop (215km in<br />
around 54 hours).<br />
Paris has plenty to say on why<br />
women are more than capable of<br />
beating men in sport, and how<br />
her motherhood may even be an<br />
advantage. As for her position as<br />
a role model for sporting mothers,<br />
she’s unfazed by it all. “I’m not<br />
bothered about being a celebrity,<br />
but people find it helpful,” she says.<br />
“Running just makes me happy, and<br />
having that time for myself makes<br />
it easier to cope with the challenges<br />
of work and having a small child.”<br />
the red bulletin: When did your<br />
passion for running begin?<br />
jasmin paris: I’ve always been into<br />
hill walking, and the differences<br />
between that and trail running<br />
aren’t huge. I discovered it when<br />
I was working in Glossop in the<br />
Peak District [in 2008] as a way<br />
of getting onto the hills quicker.<br />
Within an hour, I could be on the<br />
hill and back again before breakfast.<br />
That’s pretty special. Ultrarunning<br />
was a natural progression, but trail<br />
running is what I love.<br />
What is it about the hills that<br />
draws you to them?<br />
Mountains give me a sense of<br />
perspective – there’s a timelessness<br />
that makes all the things we worry<br />
about seem irrelevant. You’re<br />
running in your own world, with the<br />
smell of rain, the mist, the sloshing<br />
Did starting a family change all<br />
of that for you?<br />
I competed in a hill race 10 days<br />
before the birth, and I ran the park<br />
run three days before. I ran the day<br />
I went into labour, too. It’s my way<br />
of life and it makes me feel good<br />
about myself. It was just natural<br />
that I came back to running<br />
afterwards. <strong>The</strong> post-birth recovery<br />
was fairly quick, then I was back<br />
into it. I started gently jogging four<br />
weeks after Rowan was born.<br />
You’ve said it’s important to<br />
have something else in your life<br />
besides being a parent…<br />
Being a mum is the best thing that’s<br />
ever happened to me, but having<br />
something I’m passionate about<br />
makes me a better mum. Sometimes<br />
I look at the way our society works,<br />
with parents spending their whole<br />
life driving their kids from one place<br />
to the next. That’s great, because<br />
they’re encouraging the child, but<br />
I’m not sure it’s the best example for<br />
the child to feel that’s the way the<br />
world works – that everything just<br />
revolves around them. It’s good for<br />
them to see their parents enjoying<br />
their own lives, because that’s what<br />
you want for them, too – to grow up<br />
being passionate about something<br />
they want to be.<br />
What was the toughest moment<br />
of the Spine Race for you?<br />
My main worry on the start line<br />
wasn’t my physical fitness, or breast<br />
milk, it was leaving my daughter for<br />
that length of time. <strong>The</strong> first night<br />
was the hardest, because I already<br />
felt tired and still had more than<br />
200 miles [320km] to run to see<br />
Rowan. You’d think you’d get more<br />
and more tired, but on the last day<br />
I knew I was leading the race and<br />
I’d see my daughter that evening. It<br />
was actually an advantage, because<br />
it kept me moving.<br />
SKYLINE SCOTLAND/NO LIMITS PHOTOGRAPHY<br />
26 THE RED BULLETIN
“<strong>The</strong> real<br />
heroes are<br />
the runners<br />
at the back<br />
of the field”<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 27
“Having<br />
this passion<br />
makes me a<br />
better mum”<br />
Unstoppable: inclement weather is<br />
like water off an ultrarunner’s back<br />
for an athlete such as Paris, pictured<br />
here en route to her record-breaking<br />
triumph in last year’s Spine Race;<br />
(below left) Paris poses with her<br />
very muddy tools of the trade;<br />
(below right) competing in the<br />
2018 Glen Coe Skyline race, where<br />
she took second place<br />
28 THE RED BULLETIN
Jasmin Paris<br />
MICK KENYON, PETE AYLWARD, JAMES KIRBY<br />
What’s it like in those moments of<br />
absolute exhaustion?<br />
I was hallucinating. Shapes morph and<br />
change. In a way, it was an interesting<br />
distraction. When I was getting close to<br />
the very end, it looked like there were<br />
people at the side of the road. It was<br />
only trees, but your mind starts<br />
showing you things you want to see.<br />
Your main rival, Spanish runner<br />
and 2013 men’s champion Eugeni<br />
Roselló Solé, quit just 6km from the<br />
finish. What would have been going<br />
through his mind?<br />
When you’re trying to win a race like<br />
the Spine, sometimes you overstep the<br />
mark. Eugene was chasing me all<br />
through the night before, and I think<br />
he pushed himself to the limit. I was<br />
wearing every item of clothing I had<br />
– six layers, three pairs of leggings –<br />
but it’s difficult to stay warm when<br />
you’re not moving fast. He had less<br />
gear than me. That’s part of your<br />
decision-making – how much weight<br />
you’re carrying, how fast you’re moving<br />
– and ultimately it didn’t pay off [for<br />
him]. That night, it started snowing<br />
and the temperature was way below<br />
zero. If you’re getting too cold and<br />
you’re moving too slowly, it’s a vicious<br />
circle. I’m just glad he was rescued and<br />
safe in the end.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re’s been a lot of talk about<br />
women outperforming men in ultra<br />
events. What’s your take?<br />
I get this question a lot. I’m not a<br />
scientist. I mean, I am a scientist, but<br />
this is not my area of studies. I’ve found<br />
that the longer the race, the more<br />
competitive I can be with men. If you’re<br />
running a short race, it comes down<br />
to strength and aerobics. With long<br />
distances, stamina is obviously<br />
important, but 50 per cent of it is in<br />
your head – in a 24-hour race, you’ll go<br />
through bad stretches, but it’s about<br />
learning that you’ll come out the other<br />
side feeling better again. It’s meditative.<br />
In my experience, the women who turn<br />
up at long races, even if they’re just 10<br />
per cent of the field, are usually better<br />
prepared. <strong>The</strong>y’re less likely to have<br />
this macho attitude of “how hard can<br />
it be?” At the Dragon’s Back Race in<br />
Wales, I was told that if you’re a man<br />
you have a 50 per cent chance of<br />
finishing; if you’re a woman, you have<br />
a 90 per cent chance.<br />
How can we change sport so more<br />
women get involved?<br />
At races, especially the bigger ones,<br />
a readjustment in terms of gender<br />
equality is due. <strong>The</strong>re needs to be<br />
equal prize money and equal trophies<br />
for women. It doesn’t matter if there<br />
are fewer women taking part – that’s<br />
not an excuse. It has to start with<br />
everything being made equal, then<br />
more women will join.<br />
Your success in the Spine Race drew<br />
attention to mothers in sport…<br />
I’ve had so much positive feedback<br />
from people telling me their own<br />
personal stories and how they’ve<br />
been inspired, including lots of mums,<br />
some of them in breastfeeding groups.<br />
It’s just this message about women,<br />
about mothers, doing sport. I do my<br />
best to support that. Like with This<br />
Mum Runs, a volunteer-led company<br />
dedicated to getting more women out<br />
running. It is a real problem – a lot<br />
of women think they can’t do sports,<br />
and some have issues with their body<br />
image. I hope that people like me will<br />
help to change that, so this movement<br />
is aimed at getting mums running<br />
together as a social thing. Regardless<br />
of your gender, sport shouldn’t be<br />
about being good – it should be about<br />
taking part and enjoying it. Sport<br />
in schools shouldn’t be about the<br />
competitive element.<br />
Who inspires you?<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are certainly some women<br />
I admire a lot. [British fell runner]<br />
Helene Diamantides raised the profile<br />
of women in the early days of the<br />
sport. And [Scottish skyrunner]<br />
Angela Mudge. But they didn’t make<br />
me start running – that came from the<br />
love of it. It sounds corny, but I feel<br />
more inspired by the people at the<br />
back of the field. <strong>The</strong>y generally run<br />
twice as long as those at the front.<br />
I’d finish in eight or nine hours and<br />
have time to rest, eat, relax and sleep;<br />
they’re running 16-18 hours a day<br />
with six hours to eat, sleep, change<br />
clothes and set off again. <strong>The</strong>y don’t<br />
have the promise of winning and<br />
fame, and the aid stations are<br />
depleted of the best food by the time<br />
they reach them, yet the spirit they<br />
show… <strong>The</strong>y’re the real heroes. I get<br />
most of my motivation from them.<br />
Twitter: @JasminKParis<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 29
AND THE<br />
BEAT<br />
GOES ON<br />
In the six decades of its existence,<br />
NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL has faced challenges<br />
from many quarters. But this annual celebration<br />
of Caribbean culture has prevailed. This year,<br />
although the traditional live event has been put<br />
on hold, the story continues…<br />
Words GEORGIA CHAMBERS<br />
Artwork CHIIZII<br />
FLORIAN OBKIRCHER (ADDITIONAL WORDS)<br />
30 THE RED BULLETIN
Notting Hill Carnival<br />
“Carnival is a<br />
reminder that<br />
it’s possible<br />
for people to<br />
be together<br />
and unite”<br />
his summer has been a quiet one<br />
for fans of live music because of the<br />
pandemic. But there is one festival<br />
that has, in its rich history, often<br />
managed to find opportunity when<br />
faced with setbacks. When, in 1959,<br />
activist Claudia Jones staged the<br />
celebration of Caribbean culture<br />
that would become the Notting Hill<br />
Carnival, it was a reaction to race<br />
riots in the neighbourhood, a call<br />
for peace and unity within the local<br />
community. Over the past six<br />
decades, the event has grown far<br />
beyond anything Jones could have<br />
imagined. Carnival is now the world’s<br />
second-biggest street festival, with<br />
40,000 volunteers and more than<br />
a million visitors each year, adding<br />
£93 million to the <strong>UK</strong> economy.<br />
In <strong>2020</strong>, the live event has been<br />
cancelled, but Carnival is far from<br />
over. Organisers are busy creating<br />
its first digital edition, where, over<br />
August Bank Holiday weekend, mas<br />
bands, steel bands, sound systems,<br />
dancers and DJs will be streamed<br />
live to the world, giving millions<br />
a deeper insight into what Carnival<br />
culture is all about. Because Notting<br />
Hill Carnival has always been more<br />
than a street party; it’s a living<br />
history. Here, eight people involved in<br />
different aspects of Carnival explain<br />
how it has helped to shape their lives.<br />
nhcarnival.org<br />
MATTHEW<br />
PHILLIP<br />
CHIEF EXECUTIVE<br />
OFFICER, NOTTING<br />
HILL CARNIVAL<br />
Matthew Phillip doesn’t<br />
remember his first Carnival.<br />
At the age of just two years<br />
old, he witnessed the<br />
festivities from his buggy.<br />
Such an early introduction<br />
isn’t surprising when you<br />
learn that he’s the son of<br />
Notting Hill Carnival veteran<br />
Clive Phillip (see page 35).<br />
Matthew’s first Carnival<br />
memories are as an eightyear-old.<br />
“I would wear a<br />
costume and sit on a float as<br />
it went around the parade,”<br />
he remembers. “Rather than<br />
there being a set route, the<br />
band would be based on All<br />
Saints Road. <strong>The</strong>re would be<br />
music playing, and when the<br />
steel band felt like it they’d<br />
get on the float. <strong>The</strong>re were<br />
no trucks pulling the floats<br />
– people would push them.<br />
It was ultimately very<br />
environmentally friendly!”<br />
Needless to say, presentday<br />
Carnival is a very<br />
different affair, with more<br />
than a million visitors each<br />
year (making it second only<br />
to Rio in the big league of<br />
street festivals) and more than<br />
25,000 performers, 15,000<br />
handmade costumes, 250<br />
food stalls, 70 bands and 35<br />
sound systems. And Matthew<br />
is the man who makes the<br />
spectacle happen. <strong>The</strong><br />
48-year-old is humble when<br />
32 THE RED BULLETIN
discussing his role, however.<br />
“I try to make sure everyone’s<br />
voices are heard, to steer the<br />
event in a way that everyone<br />
can buy into and feel that<br />
they’re part of it,” he says. “If<br />
there was somebody leading<br />
and saying, ‘OK, this is what<br />
we’re going to do,’ that<br />
wouldn’t be what Carnival<br />
represents. Carnival has<br />
grown organically.”<br />
Notting Hill Carnival has<br />
deep roots in London and<br />
beyond. As a reaction to<br />
the Notting Hill race riots<br />
the previous year, in 1959<br />
Trinidadian journalist and<br />
human-rights activist Claudia<br />
Jones staged an indoor<br />
Caribbean Carnival at<br />
London’s St Pancras Town<br />
Hall. Seven years later,<br />
community activist Rhaune<br />
Laslett took the idea<br />
outdoors and created the<br />
first Notting Hill Carnival,<br />
which was attended by 500<br />
people. <strong>The</strong> aim of the event,<br />
originally organised for<br />
children, was to promote<br />
integration and cultural<br />
exchange through the<br />
involvement of local residents<br />
who had emigrated to the<br />
area from the West Indies.<br />
It’s this 54-year legacy that<br />
has made the cancellation<br />
of the <strong>2020</strong> Carnival – the<br />
first in its history, as a<br />
consequence of COVID-19<br />
restrictions – all the more<br />
painful. “If you’d asked me a<br />
year ago, I would have said<br />
there was nothing that could<br />
ever cancel Carnival,” says<br />
Matthew. “But in the interests<br />
of safety, and particularly<br />
the way [COVID-19] has<br />
been affecting the Black<br />
community, there was<br />
nothing else we could do.<br />
It wouldn’t have been wise<br />
to continue.”<br />
Rather than accept defeat,<br />
however, Matthew and his<br />
team decided to turn this<br />
difficult situation into a new<br />
opportunity – the chance to<br />
take Notting Hill Carnival<br />
global for the very first time.<br />
At the time of our interview,<br />
Matthew and a crew of<br />
around 30 directors, camera<br />
operators and others are<br />
preparing to shoot the trailer<br />
for what will be Carnival’s<br />
first digital edition. “We plan<br />
to show people around the<br />
world what Carnival is about,<br />
and what it has to offer, in<br />
more detail than you’d be<br />
able to see if you came in<br />
person. You’ll be able to see<br />
performances and also get an<br />
understanding of the history<br />
behind the costumes, the<br />
steel pan and the artists.”<br />
For Matthew, giving<br />
people an insight into<br />
Carnival’s roots and processes<br />
is an integral part of his work<br />
towards greater tolerance and<br />
an anti-racist society. “Recent<br />
events have shown that<br />
actually we haven’t come as<br />
far as we would hope,” he<br />
says. “Racism today is much<br />
more subtle; it’s behind<br />
closed doors, it’s systemic.<br />
Carnival is a reminder that all<br />
this diversity can exist in the<br />
same space and we can be at<br />
ease with each other; that it<br />
is possible for people to be<br />
together and unite, no matter<br />
the colour of their skin.”<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 33
“I love telling<br />
stories with my<br />
costumes”<br />
CLARY<br />
SALANDY<br />
COSTUME DESIGNER,<br />
MAHOGANY CARNIVAL ARTS<br />
Clary Salandy came to England from<br />
Trinidad as a child. It had always been<br />
her intention to study music, but when<br />
then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher<br />
raised university fees for overseas students,<br />
art was the less expensive option.<br />
“I applied to do theatre design at<br />
the Wimbledon School of Art,” Clary<br />
remembers. “In my interview, they asked<br />
me, ‘You don’t know anything about<br />
theatre – why are you applying?’ So<br />
I said, ‘I’m from Trinidad and we do<br />
this street theatre thing.’ I was able to<br />
turn that interview into a discussion<br />
on Carnival, and they took me on.”<br />
Today, Clary is one of the <strong>UK</strong>’s most<br />
accomplished costume designers. She<br />
has taught at the renowned London art<br />
school Central St Martins and created<br />
costumes for prestigious events including<br />
the Olympics opening ceremony in 2012<br />
and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. It all<br />
began with a passion for Carnival. In<br />
1989, she formed Mahogany, a Carnival<br />
arts organisation that became known<br />
for its spectacular costumes, some of<br />
them 15ft high. Mahogany lends its<br />
talents to events worldwide, but there<br />
will always be a special place for<br />
Notting Hill Carnival because of its<br />
importance to the community.<br />
“A lot of people who started with us in<br />
1989 are still with us, and their children<br />
are doing it now, too,” says Clary. “That’s<br />
what we want: a culture that has a<br />
future, and where these skills and values<br />
get passed on and on. That’s really<br />
important because it, too, is a tradition<br />
in African oral history – you take the<br />
tradition and you pass it on – so we hold<br />
true to that. So, anybody who comes in,<br />
their family must come in, too.”<br />
In Trinidad in the late 18th century,<br />
slaves were banned from joining in the<br />
celebrations of the European settlers, so<br />
created their own version of Carnival –<br />
Canboulay – in defiance. Homage is<br />
paid to this history throughout Clary’s<br />
costume designs. “If you were a slave<br />
and put on a costume for Carnival, you<br />
wouldn’t just be dancing,” she says. “You’d<br />
be looking back and commemorating.<br />
You’re standing your ground for what<br />
happened to you – it’s a protest. Carnival<br />
is an art form that has been handed<br />
down to us from that horrible journey<br />
where people died to enable us to be free<br />
and walk on the street.” With the<br />
Carnival outfits she makes, Clary says,<br />
people commemorate their ancestors’<br />
struggle in a similar way to those who<br />
wear the remembrance poppy.<br />
“I love telling important stories with<br />
my costumes, so the passion is there,”<br />
she says. “Whatever I intend to do, I’m<br />
going to do it well. Carnival is a loud<br />
voice for the Black community, because<br />
there really isn’t anything so big and<br />
recognised as a Black art form. All those<br />
things channelled me into becoming<br />
this Carnival woman.”<br />
STEPHEN RAMDEEN, ROBBIE JOSEPH/PANPODIUM<br />
34 THE RED BULLETIN
Notting Hill Carnival<br />
CLIVE<br />
‘MASHUP’<br />
PHILLIP<br />
COMMUNITY ACTIVIST,<br />
FOUNDER, MANGROVE<br />
STEELBAND<br />
When Clive ‘Mashup’ Phillip<br />
came to the <strong>UK</strong> from Trinidad<br />
in 1961, Notting Hill was very<br />
different from how it is today.<br />
Like many in the Windrush<br />
generation, the then 19-yearold<br />
had answered the call<br />
from the British government<br />
for help in rebuilding the<br />
country. But those who<br />
arrived in search of a new life<br />
were greeted with signs that<br />
read, ‘No dogs, no Blacks, no<br />
Irish,’ and were forced to live<br />
in almost slum-like conditions.<br />
In 1958, a mob of around<br />
400 White people, inflamed<br />
by right-wing groups, chased<br />
Black residents through the<br />
streets and attacked their<br />
houses in what would<br />
become known as the Notting<br />
Hill race riots. “Notting Hill<br />
was a bombsite,” remembers<br />
Clive, now 78. “Race relations<br />
in the area were terrible.”<br />
At the time, he was<br />
residing on All Saints Road,<br />
opposite the now infamous<br />
Mangrove restaurant, a hub<br />
for local Caribbeans that was<br />
also frequented by famous<br />
faces including Bob Marley<br />
and Marvin Gaye. “It wasn’t<br />
just a building, it was a<br />
community,” says Clive. “<strong>The</strong><br />
police were determined to<br />
terrorise Black people. This is<br />
when we stood up and fought.<br />
We started doing things like<br />
building homes for our elders<br />
and supporting ex-offenders<br />
leaving prison. What the police<br />
didn’t realise was that they<br />
were making us stronger.”<br />
In 1980, this activism<br />
led Clive to start Mangrove<br />
Steelband. “To me, it was<br />
something for the youths,<br />
to keep them out of trouble,<br />
because a lot of youth clubs<br />
were closing down,” he says<br />
of the band, now a big name<br />
in their field. “<strong>The</strong>y enjoyed<br />
playing pan because it gave<br />
them confidence.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> steel drum (or pan)<br />
has long been a symbol of<br />
defiance. In 1877, enslaved<br />
Trinidadians were banned by<br />
the British from playing hand<br />
drums, so turned to beating<br />
bamboo tubes. <strong>The</strong>n, after<br />
“What the<br />
police didn’t<br />
realise is<br />
that they<br />
were<br />
making us<br />
stronger”<br />
WWII, the island was awash<br />
with oil drums that had been<br />
left behind by the US forces,<br />
so the Trinidadians began<br />
experimenting with these.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> development of the steel<br />
pan began in different stages,”<br />
explains Clive. “First one<br />
note, two, three, then scales.”<br />
Mangrove Steelband<br />
are now synonymous with<br />
Notting Hill Carnival, but<br />
their longevity has not come<br />
without struggle. Clive recalls<br />
police in the ’70s and ’80s<br />
making repeated attempts to<br />
scupper their involvement.<br />
“One year, they’re blocking<br />
the roads and won’t let us<br />
pass, so [steel bands] Ebony<br />
and Eclipse decide that if they<br />
don’t let Mangrove [through],<br />
nothing will move. Eventually<br />
the police said we could join.<br />
We could hear people say,<br />
‘Mangrove is coming!’”<br />
Carnival became an excuse<br />
for the targeting of Black<br />
people by the authorities. In<br />
1976, with tensions high due<br />
to the ‘sus’ law – police could<br />
stop, search and even arrest<br />
any person they suspected of<br />
criminal intent – there were<br />
clashes between police and<br />
some in the Black community.<br />
Anticipating trouble, as many<br />
as 3,000 officers had turned<br />
up to Carnival – 10 times the<br />
usual number. “Carnival was<br />
like a battlefield,” Clive says.<br />
“We were playing on All Saints<br />
Road when a fight started on<br />
Portobello Road. <strong>The</strong> police<br />
came, smashed everything up.”<br />
Despite an unfair portrayal<br />
in the media as a hotspot for<br />
crime, today’s Carnival has<br />
around the same number of<br />
arrests per 10,000 people as<br />
Glastonbury, which is often<br />
praised for its low offence<br />
rate. For Clive, it’s important<br />
to remember the past. “A lot<br />
of people don’t know the<br />
history of Carnival or slavery,”<br />
he says, “so it’s important<br />
that people understand why<br />
they’re attending Carnival<br />
– to learn and experience<br />
culture, not just to party.”<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 35
Notting Hill Carnival<br />
JAMES WATKINS/BBC<br />
“Carnival<br />
boosts your<br />
confidence”<br />
CARMEN<br />
LONDON<br />
DJ, DISYA JENERATION<br />
SOUND SYSTEM<br />
Many of us remember our first club night<br />
as a transformative moment, a feeling<br />
of entering a forbidden world. But for<br />
Carmen London it was more than that.<br />
When she entered the Union Club in<br />
Vauxhall, south London, at the age of<br />
18, it was life-altering for two reasons.<br />
Firstly, she had never been in a crowd<br />
of LGBT people of colour before – “I was<br />
like, ‘Wow, I never knew that there are<br />
others like me’” – and secondly, as she<br />
watched the DJ controlling the crowd,<br />
she found her purpose in life.<br />
Carmen was raised on a broad diet<br />
of musical styles by her Jamaican parents<br />
– from reggae to country – so the south<br />
Londoner quickly appreciated that there<br />
are hidden gems in every genre. This<br />
turned her into a music collector very<br />
early on, so by the time she witnessed<br />
the DJ at the Union Club, Carmen was<br />
ready. Within a year she had played<br />
LGBT events in London, soon followed<br />
by club bookings across Europe.<br />
And yet, when she was asked by a<br />
fellow DJ to play Notting Hill Carnival<br />
in 2015, despite all her experience it<br />
didn’t feel like just another gig. “For<br />
a DJ, playing at Carnival is one of your<br />
big goals,” says the 32-year-old. “It was<br />
like a dream come true.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> sound system she was asked<br />
to play for, Disya Jeneration, is one<br />
of Carnival’s biggest, entertaining<br />
thousands of dancers on a tightly packed<br />
Powis Terrace with a mix of hip hop,<br />
house, dancehall and more. “It can be<br />
scary at first,” she says of her first time.<br />
“It’s so different from a nightclub gig;<br />
the crowd is huge, and a lot of people<br />
don’t know who you are, so you need to<br />
read the crowd, find out what they like<br />
and keep the energy level high.”<br />
Disya Jeneration is run by Carnival<br />
board director Linett Kamala, who, in the<br />
early ’80s, became one of the first female<br />
DJs to play at Carnival and has subsequently<br />
provided a platform for others like her.<br />
“Linett has been a mentor to me,” Carmen<br />
says. “When she passed me the baton<br />
[to help curate the sound system’s DJ<br />
line-up], it was a big deal.”<br />
Through her work with Disya<br />
Jeneration, scouting for up-and-coming<br />
DJs has become an important part of<br />
Carmen’s life. Being given the chance to<br />
DJ at Carnival was a career-defining<br />
moment for her, so she wants to provide<br />
other young people with the same<br />
opportunity. “A Carnival gig is great for<br />
your CV,” she says, “but, most important<br />
of all, it boosts your confidence. And that<br />
helps you in all areas of life.”<br />
This August Bank Holiday weekend,<br />
Carmen and her sound system crew will<br />
evoke Carnival vibes from their homes<br />
via livestreaming. As a radio presenter<br />
– Carmen hosts shows on BBC Radio 1Xtra<br />
and Pulse88 Radio – the idea of DJing<br />
in a studio is something she’s used to.<br />
“I’ll miss all the people screaming and<br />
shouting,” she says. “But we’ll give the<br />
crowd the same music and the same<br />
energy we always do.”<br />
HASAN<br />
DE FOUR<br />
CHEF, PURE LIME<br />
CHOCOLATE MAS<br />
“For the past 15 years, I’ve<br />
looked after the catering for<br />
Pure Lime Chocolate Mas,”<br />
says Hasan De Four. “I<br />
remember when it started,<br />
with 20 people coming out<br />
covered in chocolate, everyone<br />
was like, ‘What is that about?’<br />
But it was something that was<br />
missing in the <strong>UK</strong> Carnival<br />
scene: there was no J’ouvert.”<br />
J’ouvert is a Carnival<br />
tradition in Hasan’s home of<br />
Trinidad that dates back to the<br />
emancipation from slavery of<br />
the Caribbean islands in 1838.<br />
Before the ‘Pretty Mas’ where<br />
dancers parade in feathers<br />
and sequins, revellers daub<br />
themselves in oil, paint and<br />
mud – the ‘Dirty Mas’. Of<br />
course, being a chef, Hasan<br />
prefers chocolate; the 43-yearold<br />
is open to progress as well<br />
as respectful of tradition.<br />
In 1995, an 18-year-old<br />
Hasan came to London to live<br />
with his mother and his<br />
grandparents – members of<br />
the Windrush generation who<br />
arrived from the Caribbean<br />
between the late ’40s and<br />
early ’70s. “I got here the<br />
week before Carnival,” he<br />
says. “It was different to the<br />
Carnival at home. [Veteran<br />
hip-hop DJ Tim] Westwood<br />
was playing! I headed to the<br />
Trini float to get my soca on<br />
– that was my introduction.”<br />
Hasan found his passion<br />
in catering and championing<br />
Caribbean food. “I was like,<br />
‘Why isn’t our food recognised?’<br />
People say London is the<br />
original melting pot, but we’ve<br />
been doing it longer. Our<br />
food comes from the native<br />
Arawaks; from the British,<br />
Spanish and Portuguese<br />
colonists; from African slaves;<br />
from Chinese and Indian<br />
labourers – it’s a real fusion.”<br />
Opportunities soon came<br />
Hasan’s way, including a stint<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 37
Notting Hill Carnival<br />
as Gary Rhodes’ sous chef<br />
on TV, and the launch of<br />
Singapore’s first Caribbean<br />
restaurant, Lime House. “On<br />
the first day, we mirrored<br />
Notting Hill,” he says. “We<br />
called it Lime Hill. But because<br />
we were new, we didn’t get to<br />
block any streets.” He also<br />
pitched cuisine to <strong>UK</strong> clubs<br />
and festivals. “I was like,<br />
‘Why don’t you have food<br />
inside the parties?’ <strong>The</strong>y were<br />
like, ‘Sure, go ahead.’”<br />
And then there’s Carnival.<br />
“I cater more than 2,400<br />
meals,” Hasan says. “Breakfast<br />
is fried eggs, dumplings,<br />
saltfish, plantain; callaloo<br />
[a thick stew made with<br />
spinach-like greens] for the<br />
vegans. Lunchtime is pelau<br />
– Trini chicken, peas and<br />
“Food and<br />
culture are<br />
like bread<br />
and butter”<br />
veg in one pot – soaking up<br />
the fuel intake for Carnival<br />
weekend. Trini corn soup,<br />
that’s the reviver,” he laughs.<br />
<strong>The</strong> chef says his favourite<br />
moment is shortly before the<br />
revellers arrive. “On the Friday,<br />
I leave the kitchen, walk<br />
through Ladbroke Grove, and<br />
feel the change in the air.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y’re dropping the barriers,<br />
the steel pan is testing. It’s<br />
the last Bank Holiday of the<br />
year, and you know that the<br />
following week it’ll get cold.<br />
It’s the last celebration before<br />
we go into that dreary time.”<br />
This year, things may be<br />
different for Carnival, but Hasan<br />
is excited by the potential.<br />
“We’re doing cooking sessions,”<br />
he says. “People can go to this<br />
one spot and be educated by<br />
myself or a mixologist doing<br />
rum punch. And it’ll be<br />
broadcast internationally.<br />
“It’s going to be different<br />
but still fun. You can still<br />
enjoy your own space, turn<br />
your music up, and invite<br />
your neighbours to eat some<br />
jerk chicken. Let’s create our<br />
own vibe in-house.”<br />
MIKEY<br />
DREAD<br />
SELECTOR, CHANNEL<br />
ONE SOUND SYSTEM<br />
Some people learn how to<br />
operate a sound system –<br />
others, like sound-system<br />
veteran Mikey Dread, inherit<br />
it. “From the youngest age,<br />
we’ve always known sound<br />
systems; it’s basically in the<br />
blood. That’s how we<br />
started,” he says, recounting<br />
his father arriving in the <strong>UK</strong><br />
from Jamaica in the late ’50s<br />
with a sound system in tow.<br />
Having taken over the<br />
running of their dad’s set-up in<br />
1979, Mikey and his brother<br />
Jah T began performing at<br />
local venues and adopted the<br />
name Channel One. In 1983,<br />
the siblings pitched up at a<br />
spot on Acklam Road and<br />
played their first Notting Hill<br />
Carnival – and they’ve been<br />
bringing reggae and roots<br />
rhythms to listeners young<br />
and old ever since.<br />
“We go to Carnival for<br />
the people,” says Mikey. “It’s<br />
great to see old faces you’ve<br />
known for 25 years, as well<br />
as new faces just enjoying<br />
the vibe. We don’t play any<br />
music that incites violence or<br />
negativity – that’s not what<br />
people come to Channel<br />
One’s Carnival for. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
come for spiritual healing.<br />
A lot of people could have<br />
been experiencing problems<br />
during that week, and they<br />
will come to Carnival and<br />
dance for a couple of days<br />
and go back a better person.<br />
That’s what reggae and roots<br />
music is all about.”<br />
GETTY IMAGES<br />
38 THE RED BULLETIN
“<strong>The</strong>y<br />
come<br />
for<br />
spiritual<br />
healing”
Channel One is now one of<br />
the <strong>UK</strong>’s best-known reggae<br />
sound systems, with a loyal<br />
fan base, but Mikey and his<br />
brother have walked a long<br />
and arduous road to reach<br />
this level of success.<br />
“In the ’70s and ’80s, a lot<br />
of venues wouldn’t let us<br />
take our sound system in,<br />
so we ended up in backstreet<br />
community centres and things<br />
like that,” he says. “We’ve<br />
gone through all this fight to<br />
pave the way for younger<br />
sound systems.”<br />
Mikey’s experience echoes<br />
history. When the sound<br />
system arrived in England<br />
from the Caribbean in the<br />
’50s, they often had to be<br />
set up in basements and old<br />
warehouses, away from<br />
Britain’s more mainstream<br />
pubs and social spaces which,<br />
for many Caribbean people,<br />
could feel like a hostile<br />
environment. <strong>The</strong> sound<br />
system created a more<br />
welcoming space. For Mikey,<br />
honouring this history is<br />
important: “Black people have<br />
taken a lot of shit throughout<br />
the years. That’s why I keep<br />
the sound system going – it’s a<br />
Black entity, it’s a Black unit.”<br />
Mikey and Jah T don’t<br />
plan on turning down the<br />
volume any time soon. In a<br />
time when you can buy huge<br />
sound systems that are almost<br />
ready-made, in their eyes<br />
it has become even more<br />
crucial to pass on traditions<br />
– and part of sound-system<br />
culture is building the set-up<br />
from scratch.<br />
“If you really love sound<br />
systems and reggae, you’re<br />
in it for the long haul,” says<br />
Mikey. “<strong>The</strong> music itself is<br />
very important in my family’s<br />
life, because that’s what we’ve<br />
grown up with. Pops isn’t here<br />
any more, but my mother is,<br />
and she was the backbone of<br />
our family when it comes to<br />
music. So it’s very important<br />
that we keep it together and<br />
people know we’re trying to<br />
keep it going.”<br />
RHONA EZUMA<br />
DANCER, PARAISO SCHOOL<br />
OF SAMBA<br />
On a typical Monday during Carnival,<br />
more than 70 bands parade the streets<br />
of Notting Hill, with in excess of 25,000<br />
dancers in flamboyant costumes<br />
decorated with feathers and tassels. As a<br />
roadside spectator, you’re lucky to catch<br />
10 minutes of each band. So what you<br />
don’t get to see is that many dancers are<br />
moving to the Carnival rhythms for six<br />
hours a day.<br />
“It’s very long, but some Carnivals<br />
are more gruelling than others,” says<br />
30-year-old fashion stylist and THIIIRD<br />
magazine editor Rhona Ezuma, recalling<br />
the intense summer heat of last year’s<br />
“Carnival is<br />
a space to<br />
celebrate<br />
your body”<br />
event. “Despite the weather, I feel it’s my<br />
responsibility to push joy out there!”<br />
Rhona first started parading with<br />
the Paraiso School of Samba in 2015.<br />
A big inspiration for her was seeing the<br />
confidence of the women participating<br />
in the first Carnival she attended, at<br />
the age of 15. This was one of the things<br />
that made her fall in love with it.<br />
“Carnival is a place where you can be<br />
the largest woman or the smallest, show<br />
as much as you want or as little as you<br />
want,” she says. “And no one is telling<br />
you that you can’t be who you are.”<br />
What’s so special about Carnival,<br />
Rhona says, is that it creates a safe space<br />
for Black women’s bodies in particular,<br />
which have historically been subject<br />
to scrutiny. “Even today, when having<br />
a big bum and big lips is in fashion, these<br />
are features that Black women were<br />
previously ridiculed for. And now, in the<br />
mainstream, they’re celebrated more on<br />
White women than on Black women.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> freedom and confidence Rhona<br />
and many revellers feel at Carnival is<br />
intrinsically linked to dancing. “At<br />
Carnival, I make use of my hips, the bits<br />
that move and jiggle,” she says. “That’s<br />
DINITA MOORE<br />
40 THE RED BULLETIN
Notting Hill Carnival<br />
what makes it such a powerful space for<br />
women to celebrate their bodies.”<br />
Samba has influenced Rhona’s work<br />
beyond the dance moves. Although it’s<br />
known today as a Brazilian brand of<br />
dance, the roots of samba can be found<br />
in the semba, a style that originated<br />
in Angola, south-west Africa. When<br />
Portuguese slave traders transported<br />
Angolans to the state of Bahia in northeast<br />
Brazil in the early 17th century, the<br />
slaves maintained this tradition. With<br />
the abolition of slavery in Brazil in the<br />
late 19th century, those who had been<br />
freed settled in the favelas of Rio de<br />
Janeiro, where they developed their<br />
own form of samba. “Being around those<br />
stories has inspired certain headpieces<br />
and accessories I’ve made,” Rhona says.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>re’s a recognition of those stories<br />
in the garments I create.”<br />
On a personal level, the sense of<br />
achievement Rhona feels post-Carnival<br />
lives on long after the floats have passed.<br />
“I’m knackered by the end of it, but that<br />
same feeling of ‘Wow, this is what I’ve<br />
done…’ lives on,” she says. “I think I’ve<br />
learnt to treasure that a lot more. I think<br />
that’s made me a more secure person.”<br />
LEONE<br />
BUNCOMBE<br />
PRODUCTION<br />
MANAGER, MANGROVE<br />
MAS BAND<br />
Leone Buncombe designs<br />
and creates more than 200<br />
costumes for Carnival each<br />
year, but on the big day you’ll<br />
find her in jeans and a T-shirt.<br />
“It’s funny,” she says. “I’ve<br />
never been the kind to dress<br />
up. When I was younger, I’d go<br />
to Carnival with my mum, who<br />
was a seamstress. She wasn’t<br />
a costume person either.”<br />
However, as production<br />
manager for Mangrove Mas<br />
Band (short for masquerade<br />
band), one of Carnival’s most<br />
historic costume troupes,<br />
the 36-year-old is passionate<br />
about her creations. “It’s<br />
the spectacle of costume,<br />
starting with an idea, going<br />
through the design process<br />
and creating something<br />
“We try to<br />
get young<br />
people into<br />
creative<br />
industries.<br />
Carnival<br />
is a great<br />
route in”<br />
unexpected,” she says. “You<br />
can go anywhere with it.<br />
Creating costumes for<br />
Mangrove Mas Band is a<br />
year-round job – work starts<br />
almost as soon as Carnival<br />
finishes. “It’s like, ‘We’ve<br />
finished. What are we doing<br />
next year?’” says Leone with<br />
a smile. “In July and August,<br />
it’s all hands on deck. You<br />
have 15 people a night at the<br />
mas camp, all volunteers<br />
working until the early hours.<br />
Around 200 costumes equals<br />
tens of thousands of gems,<br />
hundreds of metres of fabric,<br />
and at least 1,000 glue sticks.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> community effort is<br />
part of the appeal for Leone,<br />
who has been with the mas<br />
band for 14 years. “If you<br />
don’t have community, it<br />
becomes a lonely world,”<br />
she says. “Carnival has taught<br />
me to ‘free up’, as we call it –<br />
not to take life too seriously.<br />
You walk into the mas camp<br />
and there’s music playing,<br />
people giggling and catching<br />
up. It doesn’t feel like work.”<br />
In her day job, Leone<br />
is service manager for the<br />
Rugby Portobello Trust,<br />
a charity that helps young<br />
people find education and<br />
employment. “It’s about<br />
getting people through doors<br />
they might not be able to<br />
walk through themselves.<br />
We have a creative arts<br />
project called Amplify, which<br />
Mangrove is attached to. We<br />
try to get young people into<br />
creative industries, and<br />
Carnival is a great route in.”<br />
Leone and her team are<br />
making 15 ‘utopia’-themed<br />
costumes for a catwalk show<br />
that will be part of this year’s<br />
digital offering. She believes<br />
that being online will help<br />
spread a deeper knowledge<br />
of Carnival. “You’ll be able<br />
to see every element for<br />
what it is, and get a better<br />
understanding of the history.<br />
You couldn’t usually see it<br />
all on foot in a day. It’ll give<br />
people a chance to see the<br />
bigger picture.”<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 41
Taming the beast<br />
During his work on the Mexican migrant trail,<br />
photographer and graffiti artist PABLO ALLISON<br />
has been imprisoned, robbed and held at<br />
gunpoint. But he’s never considered quitting<br />
Words RUTH McLEOD<br />
Photography PABLO ALLISON<br />
Chasing a dream: (from top, left to right) migrants risk a ride on top of a lorry en route from Oaxaca<br />
to Veracruz; a mural painted by Allison in Shoreditch, east London; after 15 days of travelling across<br />
southern Mexico, many board a freight train in Oaxaca; a tribute to the ‘Brave Migrants’; riding atop<br />
‘<strong>The</strong> Beast’ after more than four weeks crossing central America to northern Mexico; tyres, plastic,<br />
wood and anything else flammable is burnt for warmth at night; a graffitied message of hope; David<br />
from Guatemala, stranded in the state of Sonora with the aim of reaching the Mexico-US border
43
“Graffiti has been<br />
a great educator for<br />
me. I’ve never seen<br />
it as destructive”
Pablo Allison<br />
Writ large: the message in Allison’s graffiti and his photography is clear – love conquers fear<br />
GEORGE MARSHALL<br />
I<br />
t’s midnight, and Pablo Allison<br />
is clinging to the top of a fastmoving<br />
freight train as it speeds<br />
south through the Mexican<br />
desert. Heavy rain batters his body;<br />
it’s freezing cold. <strong>The</strong> train shakes as it<br />
rushes noisily on at 100kph, meaning<br />
Allison can barely adjust his grip during<br />
what will be a 10-hour journey, for fear<br />
of falling off into the darkness.<br />
Travelling illegally on this industrial<br />
network is fraught with dangers – it’s<br />
also common for these vast trains to<br />
derail, or for criminal gangs to come<br />
aboard – but it’s still the safest of the few<br />
travel options open to migrants moving<br />
across Mexico. And photographer and<br />
graffiti artist Allison has been doing<br />
these trips with them for more than<br />
three years now, to document and better<br />
understand the experiences of some of<br />
the tens of thousands of migrants who<br />
pass through the country every year<br />
on their way to the United States.<br />
Allison began riding these trains in 2016<br />
with the aim of shooting the inaccessible<br />
landscapes along Mexico’s private train<br />
routes. “But I realised I couldn’t turn my<br />
lens away from the migrants I met,” he<br />
says. “I’m fascinated by the perseverance,<br />
the strength, how people do these<br />
extraordinarily difficult journeys. <strong>The</strong><br />
motivation people have to escape, to<br />
seek a better life, is astonishing.”<br />
Most migrants Allison meets are<br />
escaping poverty, violence or both.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are men, women, children, young<br />
and old, from all sorts of backgrounds<br />
and situations, from all over the world,<br />
battling the odds and often treacherous<br />
conditions to make a new life. “People<br />
come from as far as Iraq, Syria, Iran<br />
Bangladesh, and find themselves in<br />
South America,” he says. “<strong>The</strong>n they<br />
embark on a journey through various<br />
countries, cross the notorious lawless<br />
jungle of north-west Colombia, the<br />
Darién Gap, and then somehow get to<br />
Panama. Once they get to Mexico, they<br />
still have so much to do… Those of us<br />
living moderately comfortable lives<br />
should learn from these people, rather<br />
than demonising or criminalising them.”<br />
When Allison meets <strong>The</strong> <strong>Red</strong><br />
<strong>Bulletin</strong>, he’s far from Mexico.<br />
It’s a rainy February day in<br />
Hastings on England’s south<br />
coast, and Allison – dressed in a red<br />
T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan<br />
‘FUCK TRUMP’ – is in the <strong>UK</strong> to run a<br />
workshop on migration at a street-art<br />
event and spray-paint a wall in town<br />
with a poem by a Guatemalan migrant<br />
he travelled with. In recent years, Allison<br />
has taught workshops in several countries,<br />
in art galleries and refugee centres,<br />
using his skills in both photography and<br />
graffiti to reach a range of audiences.<br />
A book of some of his photographic work<br />
comes out later this month. But Allison<br />
isn’t pushing a political agenda.<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 45
“I’m always careful not to be preachy<br />
about social or political issues,” he says.<br />
“Everyone has an idea of what migration<br />
means, and I don’t dictate. I show them<br />
my experience as I’ve documented it,<br />
and we have a conversation. This project<br />
is primarily about me understanding the<br />
complex reality of people who have to<br />
escape very difficult situations. <strong>The</strong> real<br />
objective has always been for me to<br />
become a better person.”<br />
Allison’s passion for this subject<br />
started when he was young. Born in<br />
Manchester, Allison moved with his<br />
family to Mexico – the birthplace of his<br />
mother – when he was three. Allison<br />
was curious, his parents liberal. “My<br />
mum’s only rules were that I couldn’t<br />
take drugs or join the Nazi party,” says<br />
Allison, now 38. So he started exploring<br />
’90s Mexico City. “At 16 or so, I’d take<br />
my parents’ camera and photograph<br />
graffiti. I’d go to train yards on the<br />
outskirts of the city to paint trains.<br />
I’d notice people travelling on the tops<br />
of these trains, which run between<br />
Mexico, the US and Canada.”<br />
Allison’s own journey has been<br />
anything but straightforward. He’s<br />
been imprisoned in both the <strong>UK</strong> and<br />
the US, and held at gunpoint in Mexico<br />
– distressing episodes that have informed<br />
and shaped his current work. “Having<br />
my liberty taken from me made me<br />
realise how important being creative is,”<br />
he says. “Art is freedom. I was free even<br />
then, because I was able to use my head.”<br />
Allison was first sent to prison in 2012,<br />
a decade after returning to the <strong>UK</strong> to<br />
discover the graffiti scene and study<br />
documentary photography. “London’s<br />
energy was inspiring,” he says. “Graffiti<br />
belongs to urban environments, and I was<br />
seriously into it. It’s the adrenalin, the<br />
rebelliousness, the creativity, the curiosity.<br />
Graffiti has been a great educator for me.<br />
I’ve never seen it as destructive.”<br />
But, in the run-up to the Olympic<br />
Games, London police were<br />
cleaning up. Allison was given<br />
a 19-month jail sentence – six of<br />
which would be served in HM Prison<br />
Wormwood Scrubs – for tagging trains.<br />
“I don’t see graffiti as a criminal act,”<br />
he says. “But I always knew that<br />
prosecution was possible. It was about<br />
completing the sentence so I could<br />
leave and start a new life.”<br />
While he was inside, Allison<br />
collaborated with his photographer<br />
sister, Roxana, on a creative project<br />
about the experience. He read, wrote<br />
and drew. “I just wanted to be locked in<br />
my cell,” he says. “I had so much to do.<br />
I didn’t want to waste time.”<br />
Allison says he left more serious,<br />
more solitary and less restless. He<br />
stopped doing graffiti. He ran a lot. He<br />
continued to work on projects around<br />
migration and identity, while working<br />
several different jobs in London,<br />
including roles at charities Amnesty<br />
International and Action Aid. His idea<br />
for the project in Mexico began to form.<br />
“I realised I wanted to go back,<br />
to apply my knowledge from those<br />
charities,” he says. “I was very motivated<br />
to start from scratch there.” In 2016,<br />
he moved back to Mexico City to begin<br />
photographing the landscapes visible<br />
to migrants when they travel by train,<br />
a single project he thought would be<br />
done within a year, but which has now<br />
morphed into two projects across three<br />
countries, which are still ongoing,<br />
almost four years later.<br />
Allison soon experienced first-hand<br />
the vulnerability of the people travelling<br />
these routes. “One train won’t take you<br />
from south to north,” he says. “You have<br />
to understand the route you’re taking,<br />
you have to get on and off. <strong>The</strong>se freight<br />
“We should celebrate migration and understand it not as<br />
a problem but as a phenomenon. Trump’s idea that they’re<br />
all criminals, it’s rubbish”<br />
Brave statement: a tribute to the Migrantes Valientes. <strong>The</strong> tombstones display the names of some of the migrants’ countries of birth<br />
46 THE RED BULLETIN
Pablo Allison<br />
GEORGE MARSHALL<br />
“People who embark on any journey<br />
as a means to survive appreciate life…<br />
they’re optimistic, resilient”<br />
trains carry thousands of dollars’ worth<br />
of goods to the US or Canada. Banditos<br />
regularly steal grain, TVs, whatever. So<br />
travelling this way is seriously risky.”<br />
He has witnessed violence, been<br />
robbed, and was almost killed two years<br />
ago by a criminal gang while travelling<br />
with two friends. “We were held at<br />
gunpoint on a train,” Allison says. “I<br />
prayed for my life. We were lucky to<br />
escape alive.” Yet he was back at work<br />
the next month, armed with his camera,<br />
travelling on foot and by train with<br />
a caravan of around 7,000 people.<br />
“Somehow, you brush it aside,’ he says.<br />
“After all, I’ve chosen to do this.”<br />
<strong>The</strong>n, last year, Allison’s resolve was<br />
tested again. After he was refused entry<br />
to Canada, US agents noticed Allison<br />
had overstayed the visa he’d been issued<br />
to attend an exhibition in New York a few<br />
months earlier. He was detained by US<br />
Immigration and Customs Enforcement,<br />
and imprisoned in Tacoma, Washington<br />
State. “I had no idea,” says Allison. “It<br />
was an admin error! But they locked me<br />
up. I ended up being in jail for almost a<br />
month – I believe because of my previous<br />
conviction. I’d done nothing wrong,<br />
but I was handcuffed, leg-cuffed. I wore<br />
a prison uniform. On the way to jail,<br />
I remember seeing these huge murals<br />
showing great American scenes like the<br />
Grand Canyon, which felt pretty ironic<br />
as those were the landscapes I’d wanted<br />
to photograph.”<br />
Allison threw himself into his writing<br />
and drawing. He got fellow inmates to<br />
pose for portraits. “Again, being creative<br />
was crucial in an environment like that,”<br />
he says. “Imagine, you wake up in a cell<br />
with 85 other people. You have two<br />
widescreen TVs showing CNN all day<br />
long in a confined environment. <strong>The</strong><br />
food’s terrible. You’re forced to go to<br />
sleep at 11pm. <strong>The</strong>n all through the<br />
night there’s noise.”<br />
But somehow Allison also managed<br />
to find positives thanks to the other<br />
inmates – mostly people classed as illegal<br />
immigrants, awaiting deportation. “We<br />
gave each other nicknames, joked about<br />
our situation,” he says. “I laughed so<br />
much. It was so much therapy to me.<br />
I realised that I didn’t need to be in<br />
Canada, I needed to be in that prison.<br />
That’s where the work I’ve been doing<br />
passionately for the last few years had<br />
to lead me, to the detention centre that<br />
I’d heard stories about from migrants.<br />
Before this, I’d always had the option to<br />
opt out, to go back home. When I was<br />
locked in that jail, I was treated like<br />
any other prisoner. That was the first<br />
moment I could feel like a non-privileged<br />
person working on this topic.”<br />
After Allison was cleared to leave, he<br />
waited in a holding cell. “Most people in<br />
there with me were being deported and<br />
losing everything they had; some were<br />
still wearing their work uniforms, others<br />
didn’t have their own clothes so were still<br />
wearing their prison uniform. But it was<br />
a party. We were still locked up, but it<br />
was a celebration of freedom.”<br />
Although, like most, Allison<br />
recently endured yet another<br />
unforeseen period of lockdown<br />
during the COVID-19 pandemic<br />
– the time was spent in Manchester<br />
with his sister – he’s back on the migrant<br />
trail in Mexico again. “People always<br />
try to escape bad conditions,” he says,<br />
“so migration doesn’t stop.” How does<br />
he see his projects ending? “<strong>The</strong> moment<br />
it doesn’t stimulate me, is the moment<br />
I’ll stop. But despite the dangers, it still<br />
makes me feel alive.<br />
“I’ve seen people find the strength<br />
to move forward. People who embark<br />
on any journey as a means to survive and<br />
live – and maybe a bit more than that,<br />
too – appreciate life. People are pretty<br />
optimistic, resilient and enthusiastic.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y crack jokes. I’m fascinated by that.<br />
We should celebrate migration and<br />
understand it not as a problem but as a<br />
phenomenon. Trump’s idea that they’re<br />
all criminals, it’s rubbish. <strong>The</strong>re will<br />
always be exceptions, but all the many,<br />
many people I’ve become friends with<br />
are hardworking people.”<br />
It’s this idea of positivity in the face<br />
of hardship that inspired the name of<br />
Allison’s forthcoming book, <strong>The</strong> Light<br />
of the Beast. “‘<strong>The</strong> Beast’ is a name that<br />
migrants have given the train over the<br />
years,” he says. “It’s dangerous, and<br />
there’s the roar of the engine. It’s like<br />
a huge monster that people have to<br />
jump on the back of. <strong>The</strong> light is the<br />
hope that it represents, too.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Light of the Beast is out on<br />
<strong>September</strong> 2, published by Pavement<br />
Studio, and an exhibition of Allison’s<br />
work will be at Make Your Mark Gallery<br />
in Helsinki from <strong>September</strong> 2-30;<br />
pabloallison.co.uk<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 47
Ready<br />
to<br />
roll<br />
In the historic city of Athens, these young<br />
Greek women are reclaiming space, navigating<br />
uncertain futures and pushing for progress.<br />
And they’re doing it all on roller skates<br />
Words ALEX KING Photography MARK LEAVER
Suzana Bakatsia<br />
skates across the<br />
battered tarmac of<br />
the old Hellinikon<br />
Airport on the<br />
Athens coastline<br />
49
CIB Athens<br />
“A huge part of roller skating<br />
is about reclaiming space. It’s<br />
about feminism and being<br />
empowered as a woman”<br />
W hen you approach Athens’<br />
old Hellinikon Airport, sun-bleached road signs direct<br />
you towards Domestic Arrivals and International<br />
Departures. But nothing has taken off here in<br />
decades. Old planes sit eerily silent next to the<br />
perimeter fence, and the control tower gazes out over<br />
a runway with grass breaking through its cracks.<br />
This afternoon, a group of female roller skaters<br />
have found their way into the old departure lounge.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y cruise around, exploring its forgotten corners<br />
and slaloming between its battered pillars. As the<br />
sun begins to set over the runway outside, its rays<br />
stream in through the dirty glass windows and<br />
bathe them all in an otherworldly golden light.<br />
For many of these women, skating here has always<br />
been a dream. Some glide effortlessly around the<br />
space, jumping and spinning, while the other<br />
women freestyle, laughing and joking as their<br />
wheels kick up clouds of dust.<br />
As Athens tentatively emerges from a decade of<br />
economic chaos, young female roller skaters are<br />
fighting for space in their city. This generation of<br />
Greeks grew up with few opportunities, but that<br />
taught them a valuable lesson: if you want to follow<br />
your passion, you have to make it happen yourself.<br />
While support and infrastructure for young people<br />
fell victim to Greece’s historic economic crisis,<br />
Chicks in Bowls Athens are using roller skating to<br />
Nothing has taken off at Athens’ Hellinikon Airport since 2001. <strong>The</strong> site<br />
has sat empty for years, waiting to be redeveloped<br />
50 THE RED BULLETIN
(Left to right) Stefania<br />
Malama, Suzana<br />
Bakatsia and Sofia<br />
Argyraki skate through<br />
the airport’s empty<br />
terminal building
“Roller skating honestly<br />
helps us get out of what is,<br />
for most people, a really<br />
tough reality”<br />
52 THE RED BULLETIN
CIB Athens<br />
Below: the crew<br />
cruise and freestyle<br />
around the empty<br />
car park near<br />
the summit of<br />
Athens’ Mount<br />
Lycabettus, just<br />
before sunrise.<br />
Opposite page:<br />
(left to right)<br />
Suzana Bakatsia,<br />
Constantina Xafi<br />
and Lydia Panagou<br />
wait for the sunrise<br />
on top of Lycabettus<br />
after skating<br />
through the night<br />
create their own community, express themselves<br />
and forge a new relationship with their city. Day in,<br />
day out, they’re showing up at male-dominated<br />
skate spots, demanding respect and inclusion.<br />
“All skateparks here are male-dominated,<br />
however you look at it,” says Constantina Xafi, 28.<br />
“We all roll, and it’s OK for all of us. Whatever level<br />
you are and whatever type of person you are, you<br />
deserve space at the skatepark.” Xafi is one of the<br />
group’s driving forces. She works in theatre, founded<br />
her own screen-printing business, and volunteers as<br />
a teacher with Free Movement Skateboarding, who<br />
offer free skateboarding lessons to young Greeks<br />
and refugees. Xafi is working towards her dream of<br />
creating a skatepark full of bowls suitable for roller<br />
skaters but open to all. However, of all the types of<br />
rider who call skateparks home – on skateboards,<br />
BMXs, scooters or inline skates – roller skaters are<br />
almost always women. And building a strong<br />
community has been game-changing.<br />
“After I started roller skating, I began to imagine<br />
rad girls conquering the city on their skates,”<br />
remembers Chicks in Bowls Athens co-founder Sofia<br />
Argyraki, 31. In January 2015, Argyraki went to skate<br />
the now-demolished DIY BMX ramp in Vrilissia,<br />
a town in Athens’ northern suburbs, with friends<br />
Christina Rodopoulou and Akylina Palianopoulou.<br />
<strong>The</strong> trio spent the best part of the afternoon<br />
attacking the ramp together, encouraging each<br />
other to push harder. Stoked after their high-energy<br />
session, they created a group to encourage other<br />
women to share their passion for ramp skating.<br />
Today, Argyraki’s dream has come true: the group<br />
has grown to around 30-40 female roller skaters<br />
who link up regularly to skate their favourite parks<br />
and explore new corners of the city together.<br />
<strong>The</strong> ancient metropolis of Athens is no skater’s<br />
paradise; it’s a chaotically planned and densely<br />
packed city, scattered across many steep hills.<br />
It’s also home to numerous potholes and<br />
broken pavements, which are particularly hazardous<br />
for the small urethane wheels on roller skates.<br />
If you want to skate ramps in Athens, there aren’t<br />
many options; the city doesn’t have lavish municipal<br />
skateparks or an administration particularly tolerant<br />
of DIY spots. Some suburbs have small parks, but the<br />
best spots have been built by skaters themselves,<br />
whether it’s the sprawling DIY park in Galatsi or<br />
Athens’ only bowl, the experimental skate/art space<br />
Latraac in gritty Kerameikos. But, despite less-thanfavourable<br />
conditions, the city is home to an<br />
increasingly vibrant community of skateboarders,<br />
BMX riders and, most recently, roller skaters.<br />
“It’s nice to explore the city on skates, but it’s not<br />
ideal, not easy,” Xafi says. “Once you start hanging<br />
out with people and skating regularly, they tell you<br />
about new spots that are nice to skate, so you can go<br />
and check them out and discover new places.”<br />
Lydia Panagou, 23, who has become one of the<br />
group’s most accomplished skaters, agrees. “<strong>The</strong><br />
thing I like most about roller skating is that it brings<br />
me together with others,” she says. “We organise<br />
meet-ups, we have our music, and we travel around<br />
the city to our favourite spots. Each person moves<br />
and dresses however they feel. It’s important to be<br />
one with your skates: the style, the aesthetics, the<br />
rhythm. That comes out when there’s a harmony and<br />
you feel comfortable with yourself and the people<br />
around you. Your friends encourage and uplift you.”<br />
Panagou introduced her childhood friend Suzana<br />
Bakatsia, 22, and the pair now skate whenever they<br />
can. “I tried with Lydia’s skates and it was strange<br />
and unfamiliar at first, but then I really felt a rush<br />
of adrenalin,” Bakatsia says.<br />
Anyone can hit up Chicks in Bowls Athens on<br />
Instagram and join one of their regular skate sessions,<br />
from first-time skaters to visitors keen to find a local<br />
crew. “Having a community is really important,”<br />
says artist and architect Foteini Korre, 29. “Many<br />
spots are far away, which puts you off going alone.<br />
But when we travel and skate together, we help and<br />
support each other, and you feed off that energy.”<br />
Before she joined, Korre had grown increasingly<br />
intrigued by the roller-skating scene she saw<br />
emerging in Athens and around the world, but<br />
didn’t know how to find her way in. Eventually, she<br />
discovered Chicks in Bowls Athens on social media.<br />
Two years later, she looks back fondly on her first<br />
session, outside the Athens Conservatoire, a historic<br />
performing arts centre. Its long expanse of smooth<br />
marble, mercifully shaded from the beating sun, is<br />
where many Athenian skaters take their first steps<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 53
CIB Athens<br />
– or rolls. “I enjoyed falling over all the time and<br />
pushing myself,” Korre says. “I loved that I was doing<br />
new things with my body and I felt so supported by<br />
the girls. <strong>The</strong>re was a big sense of achievement.”<br />
Skating isn’t something Korre, or the other girls<br />
she knew, did during childhood. “My generation of<br />
girls didn’t have the opportunity to skateboard,” she<br />
says. “We were expected to play with dolls, or stay at<br />
home and do chores, while our brothers played in the<br />
streets. I started roller skating at 28, and I wish I had<br />
the chance when I was six. It’s hard when you realise<br />
in your twenties you want that wasted time back.”<br />
Male-dominated skateparks aren’t unique to<br />
Athens, of course. Around the world, huge<br />
efforts have been made in recent years to<br />
make skate culture more inclusive, but it<br />
remains largely a boys’ club. “To go into that space<br />
as a female when the majority of skaters are male<br />
creates this automatic divide,” says Chicks in Bowls<br />
founder Samara Buscovick, aka Lady Trample.<br />
“Whether it’s intentional or not, there’s a feeling<br />
that all eyes are on you. It can be really intimidating,<br />
especially if you’re new. <strong>The</strong> majority of interactions<br />
I’ve had in parks have actually been really positive,<br />
but there’s still a sense that you’re an alien in their<br />
space – you have to prove you belong.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> sprawling concrete jungle that is the Greek capital, as seen from<br />
the top of Mount Lycabettus<br />
Originally from Auckland, New Zealand, and now<br />
based in Kremmling, Colorado, roller derby pro<br />
Lady Trample was introduced to bowl skating by her<br />
friend Michelle ‘Cutthroat’ Hayes back in November<br />
2012. It immediately became an addiction. During a<br />
group session a few weeks later, a friend exclaimed,<br />
“It’s so cool to see all these chicks in bowls!” – and<br />
the name stuck. Seven years after Trample began<br />
building this inclusive community, Chicks in Bowls<br />
(now CIB) has more than 300 chapters worldwide.<br />
“One of the beautiful things about CIB is<br />
connecting with your local chapter and not feeling<br />
so isolated on that journey,” says Trample. “A<br />
cultural shift has taken place; there’s now greater<br />
representation of both females and quad skaters in<br />
the parks – they have become safer spaces to enter.”<br />
Yet there is work still to be done, particularly in<br />
Greece, historically one of Europe’s most socially<br />
conservative countries, where patriarchal attitudes<br />
die hard. For the women of CIB Athens, there are<br />
sometimes frustrating reminders that the city is still<br />
playing catch-up. “Public space is mainly occupied<br />
by men, and that’s a fact,” Korre says. “You see it on<br />
the streets: if there’s only space on the sidewalk for<br />
one person, a man will just walk straight and you’re<br />
expected to move. It’s the legacy of women being<br />
shut in their homes for so many years with no rights.<br />
Women here were only given the vote in 1952.”<br />
Greece’s skateparks reflect the situation in wider<br />
society, which is moving slowly forward, but not fast<br />
enough for many. “I know I’m far from a pro skater,<br />
but some young men in the park have completely<br />
disrespected me,” Korre says with a sense of<br />
exasperation. “A huge part of roller skating is about<br />
reclaiming space. For me, that’s political on its own<br />
– it’s about feminism and being empowered as a<br />
woman. Most people in the skateparks are cool,<br />
but you sometimes have to deal with sexist and<br />
misogynistic behaviour. <strong>The</strong> more we show up<br />
where people skate, the more accepted we get. Now<br />
most have started facing it that we’re here to stay.”<br />
For the city’s young female skaters, there are so<br />
many more reasons why having an Athens chapter<br />
of CIB – and the community it helps to build – is so<br />
important. “<strong>The</strong> truth is that I love Greece, I love<br />
Athens, and I love the place where I’ve grown up,”<br />
Panagou says. “Somehow we’ve got used to living<br />
like this, but things are difficult for young people.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Greek debt crisis erupted in late 2009 and<br />
became the worst economic disaster in European<br />
Union history. Young people were hit particularly<br />
hard, with youth unemployment peaking at more<br />
than 60 per cent. After years of austerity and cuts<br />
to spending, many of the services that young people<br />
rely upon – schools, universities, sports facilities<br />
– are in urgent need of repair and investment.<br />
Politicians have announced repeatedly that the<br />
crisis is over, yet Greek young people have seen little<br />
improvement in their prospects. Most available jobs,<br />
usually in tourism, are poorly paid. This leaves the<br />
likes of Panagou, who is about to finish her degree<br />
54 THE RED BULLETIN
Hellinikon’s dusty,<br />
long-neglected<br />
terminal building<br />
is a roller-skating<br />
playground for the<br />
CIB Athens crew<br />
– a place to hang<br />
out and try out new<br />
freestyle moves<br />
in Art <strong>The</strong>ory and the History of Art at the Athens<br />
School of Fine Arts, with an agonising choice: “It’s<br />
hard for anyone my age with hopes and dreams for<br />
the future. To find work in the arts, I’ll probably<br />
have to go abroad. But I’d love to find something<br />
to keep me in Greece and be part of the change.”<br />
With its economy so dependent on tourism,<br />
Greece is predicted to be severely affected by the<br />
COVID-19 pandemic. This city of seemingly endless<br />
summers has financial storm clouds circling over<br />
it once again. While Panagou tries to focus on<br />
finishing her studies and working out what she’ll do<br />
next, roller skating provides a much-needed release.<br />
“It’s not just studying – I feel stress and pressure<br />
from the city and the rhythm in which we live,” she<br />
says. “Roller skating helps me get away from all<br />
that. Going out with friends to do our thing, landing<br />
tricks, or just laughing and talking about random<br />
stuff – it all feels good. It honestly helps us get out<br />
of what is, for most people, a really tough reality.”<br />
“It’s important to be<br />
one with your skates:<br />
the style, the<br />
aesthetics, the rhythm”<br />
Xafi and fellow roller skater Eva Balasi, 30,<br />
have linked up for an evening session at the<br />
Vyronas mini ramp, nestled in the forest<br />
beneath Mount Hymettus. After burning<br />
through all their energy, they’re catching their<br />
breath at the foot of the big concrete ramp.<br />
“Most ramps in Athens are built for skateboarders<br />
and are tall, slippery and dangerous for quads, like<br />
this one,” says Balasi, who broke her shin in two<br />
places after falling here in March last year. Yet, even<br />
with a 34cm titanium rod in her bone marrow, two<br />
screws in her knee and two more in her ankle, the<br />
fashion photographer couldn’t stay off her skates –<br />
six weeks after the operation she was skating again,<br />
despite being told to rest for six months. “Skating is<br />
about falling,” Xafi adds, philosophically. “When you<br />
fall, you have to get up and stand back on your feet.”<br />
She continues, “For me, feminism is about<br />
spreading equality; I don’t see borders in roller<br />
skating. When you see boys and girls supporting<br />
each other, that’s where the magic happens. <strong>The</strong>re is<br />
no need to say who does and doesn’t belong to this<br />
place – everyone belongs to wherever the fuck they<br />
want to belong, wherever they feel free. In Greece,<br />
we don’t have the infrastructure or opportunities for<br />
young people. But that’s the beauty of DIY: we have<br />
streets and we can come together to build whatever<br />
we want. We can be the change we want to see.”<br />
Watch the CIB Athens crew in action in the short film<br />
Athena Skates at redbull.com<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 55
Beyond<br />
fear<br />
More people have walked on the Moon<br />
than have visited the underwater<br />
worlds explored by Canadian cave-diver<br />
JILL HEINERTH. What the 55-year-old<br />
does may be incredibly dangerous, but,<br />
she says, it’s also life-affirming<br />
Words ANDREAS WOLLINGER<br />
Photography JILL HEINERTH
<strong>The</strong> deepest desert<br />
Dan’s Cave, located deep beneath<br />
South Abaco in the northern Bahamas,<br />
is believed to be 350,000 years old.<br />
<strong>The</strong> underwater cavern is of particular<br />
interest to climate researchers, as<br />
deposits of sand blown by the wind from<br />
the Sahara and across the Atlantic have<br />
been found here. By researching the<br />
cave’s stalagmites, it’s been possible<br />
to determine when our planet has<br />
experienced periods of drought.<br />
57
Jill Heinerth<br />
Left: Heinerth at<br />
the Wookey Hole<br />
caves in Somerset.<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>UK</strong>’s first-ever<br />
underwater cave<br />
dive took place<br />
there, in the cavern<br />
known as Swildon’s<br />
Hole, in 1934<br />
J ill Heinerth didn’t get<br />
to live her childhood dream of becoming<br />
an astronaut. Instead, the Torontonian has<br />
dedicated her life to exploring a different<br />
sort of alien landscape: the world of<br />
underwater caves. Heinerth gave up her<br />
day job as a graphic designer before she<br />
turned 30 so she could devote all of her<br />
time to exploring almost inaccessible and<br />
undiscovered environments. Now 55, she<br />
has dived the world’s longest, deepest and<br />
narrowest caves, including an iceberg in<br />
Antarctica – a list of achievements that will<br />
see her inducted into the International<br />
Scuba Diving Hall of Fame this year.<br />
It’s incredibly risky squeezing your way<br />
through narrow, pitch-black underwater<br />
caves. <strong>The</strong> slightest mistake could end up<br />
costing you the ultimate penalty – in an<br />
average year, as many as 20 cave divers lose<br />
their life. But Heinerth says the counter to<br />
that risk is exhilaration. “<strong>The</strong>re’s no greater<br />
thrill than diving at a spot where no one else<br />
has ever been,” she says. Heinerth admits<br />
that even with years of experience she still<br />
gets scared, “but you can’t let it take over,<br />
or else you’ll use up too much air”.<br />
So, how does she cope with high-risk<br />
situations? “Take a deep breath when you<br />
come face to face with danger,” Heinerth<br />
says. “<strong>The</strong>n take a step-by-step approach<br />
to what you need to do to survive.”<br />
To read more about Heinerth’s diving projects,<br />
visit intotheplanet.com<br />
SUUNTO <strong>UK</strong><br />
58 THE RED BULLETIN
Hidden wonderland<br />
Visiting this bizarre underwater<br />
landscape off Bermuda requires a<br />
special permit, as the cave has been<br />
out of bounds for 40 years on safety<br />
grounds. “I have always been utterly<br />
spellbound by the beauty,” Heinerth<br />
says. “I think this cave is one of the<br />
most amazing things I’ve ever seen.”<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 59
Jill Heinerth<br />
Divine light<br />
A ray of sunlight penetrates<br />
the darkness of a cave in<br />
Mexico, bringing to mind the<br />
Mayan belief that these karst<br />
caves were home to the gods<br />
of the underworld. “I call this<br />
picture from Yucatán ‘Beam<br />
me up,’” laughs Heinerth.
Safety selfie<br />
Heinerth tests a<br />
rebreather – a device<br />
that recycles the<br />
diver’s air, enabling<br />
longer explorations.<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 61
Jill Heinerth<br />
Strange brew<br />
<strong>The</strong> waters of the Santa Fe<br />
River in northern Florida<br />
are stained this brownishred<br />
colour, which resembles<br />
tea, because of tannic acid<br />
released by decaying<br />
cypress trees.<br />
63
Jill Heinerth<br />
Tight squeeze<br />
Moments of claustrophobia such as<br />
this are par for the course for cave<br />
divers. To get through them, Heinerth<br />
says, you must “strike a balance<br />
between fear and self-belief”.<br />
Towing the line<br />
Heinerth’s dive partner secures the safety line<br />
at the entrance to the Devil’s Eye Spring in<br />
Florida. This is the only way to ascertain where<br />
you are, should dislodged silt suddenly reduce<br />
visibility to zero, which is pretty common.<br />
64 THE RED BULLETIN
Deep history<br />
This French ship was sunk<br />
by a German U-boat off Bell<br />
Island, Newfoundland, in<br />
November 1942. <strong>The</strong> wreckcum-artificial<br />
reef is now home<br />
to a plethora of marine life.
American underworld<br />
<strong>The</strong> Floridan aquifer is a network of<br />
underground channels that branch<br />
out in all directions and provide<br />
groundwater to 60 per cent of the<br />
state’s population. It also has a<br />
magnetic pull for fearless cave divers<br />
from all over the world. This is the<br />
entrance to the Sunshine State’s<br />
Orange Grove Sink Spring.
Jill Heinerth<br />
Call of the unknown<br />
In 2000, Heinerth had an accident<br />
in this cave – the Pit, far below the<br />
Mexican peninsula of Yucatán –<br />
that almost brought her career<br />
to an end. But the Canadian says<br />
that the thrill she gets from<br />
diving outweighs any risk.<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 67
PEAK<br />
PERFORMANCE<br />
Having started out alone in a field in rural Austria,<br />
FABIO WIBMER now entertains millions with bike<br />
skills that have to be seen to be believed. Here, the<br />
25-year-old discusses the secrets of his success<br />
Words ALEX LISETZ<br />
Photography HANNES BERGER
NON-CONTACT SPORT<br />
Cycling on the jetty at Austria’s Lake Hall statt is technically<br />
forbidden. Wibmer’s solution: no touching the ground<br />
69
Fabio Wibmer<br />
FLIPPING THE SCRIPT<br />
Wibmer is in complete harmony<br />
with his environment in this<br />
mountainous playground<br />
Overlooked by Patscherkofel<br />
mountain on a bright<br />
day in rural Tyrol, just a<br />
few kilometres from his<br />
Innsbruck home, Fabio<br />
Wibmer is about to start<br />
riding. And when the<br />
Austrian pro gets on his<br />
bike, the world watches. Most recently,<br />
the downhill and trials bike rider wowed<br />
millions online with his video Home Office,<br />
made in response to lockdown. In the<br />
film, he transforms his house in ways that<br />
few would imagine possible – jumping<br />
off his roof on his bike onto a mattress<br />
perched in a tree, netting a basketball<br />
with his back wheel, and binning a bag<br />
of rubbish using a homemade catapult.<br />
Wibmer’s tricks have a sense of humour.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y’re also insanely difficult to pull off.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se sorts of unique moves are<br />
exactly what the 25-year-old has<br />
been training for almost all of his life.<br />
Wibmer, it would seem, has a more vivid<br />
imagination than most of us. And it<br />
makes the world his playground.<br />
“I look at the absolutely normal things<br />
around me from a different perspective,”<br />
the Austrian says. “I think of using them<br />
in ways that could be a good idea. And<br />
then I put those ideas into practice.”<br />
Wibmer makes it sound so simple, and<br />
for him, in some ways, it is. “You don’t<br />
need a budget or a chic location to make<br />
the most of your creativity,” he says.<br />
“Sometimes you even have better ideas<br />
when your opportunities are limited.”<br />
Simple, maybe. But not easy.<br />
<strong>The</strong> rider grew up in a mountain<br />
village in East Tyrol – not the greatest<br />
springboard to worldwide fame.<br />
“I love Oberpeischlach,” he says, “but<br />
there was absolutely nothing to do<br />
there. We didn’t as much as a piece of<br />
even ground. You could play football<br />
for five minutes and then the ball would<br />
roll off downhill.”<br />
Wibmer was six when he realised<br />
something important: a meadow and<br />
a fallen tree can actually offer hours of<br />
fun if you think creatively – and get<br />
yourself the right tools. A meadow can<br />
be a moto cross route, and a fallen tree<br />
can be part of a trial obstacle course.<br />
70 THE RED BULLETIN
“I look at totally<br />
normal things<br />
around me from<br />
a different<br />
perspective”
Diver<br />
BRANCHING OUT<br />
When planning his tricks,<br />
Wibmer looks to other disciplines,<br />
including skateboarding and<br />
parkour, for inspiration
Fabio Wibmer<br />
BALANCING ACT<br />
In his YouTube videos, the Austrian executes tricks<br />
that are not only audacious but also funny<br />
“If I can do a<br />
trick within<br />
30 seconds,<br />
I’m not<br />
interested”<br />
After a family day out at the Motocross<br />
World Championship in southern<br />
Austria, Wibmer and his cousin Gabriel<br />
begged their parents to buy them mini<br />
motocross bikes. From that moment,<br />
his uncle’s field went from being a bad<br />
football pitch to becoming the perfect<br />
motocross course. And the forest at the<br />
back of the house became an adventure<br />
playground with endless inspiration for<br />
daring stunts and heroic feats.<br />
STAY CURIOUS<br />
Fast-forward to today and Wibmer is<br />
now his home country’s most successful<br />
YouTuber, with more than five million<br />
subscribers; total views of his videos<br />
number somewhere in the hundreds of<br />
millions. His success is, of course, down<br />
to his ingenious skill on both trials and<br />
downhill bikes, but the extra element is<br />
creativity. Wibmer’s videos tell a story.<br />
His tricks are surprising and funny. To<br />
devise them, he says he thinks like his<br />
six-year-old self. He examines everyday<br />
objects from his surroundings and uses<br />
them to create unexpected ideas.<br />
<strong>The</strong> best example of this is Fabiolous<br />
Escape, the video that gave Wibmer his<br />
breakthrough five years ago. “Fabiolous<br />
Escape was originally my entry for a<br />
video competition where the aim was<br />
to film a sleek line in a single take,” he<br />
says. “I thought to myself, ‘Why not tell<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 73
Fabio Wibmer<br />
Wibmer’s<br />
guide<br />
to the<br />
perfect<br />
ride<br />
1<br />
2<br />
3<br />
4<br />
5<br />
1. POC helmet<br />
“It’s important to buy<br />
a quality helmet and<br />
find one that fits you<br />
well. I really trust in<br />
the protection I get<br />
from this one. If you<br />
do have a serious<br />
crash with a helmet,<br />
you need to get a<br />
replacement. I actually<br />
haven’t been through<br />
too many, which is<br />
either skill or luck!”<br />
2. Magura MT5<br />
brakes<br />
“Brakes are almost<br />
the most important<br />
part of my bike – I use<br />
them in almost every<br />
step I do. And when<br />
you’re standing<br />
somewhere 6m off<br />
the ground, you need<br />
to know that your<br />
brakes won’t let you<br />
down. If they did, it<br />
wouldn’t end well!”<br />
3. Canyon<br />
bike frame<br />
“This is the first trials<br />
bike from Canyon –<br />
it’s been specifically<br />
made for my riding.<br />
It’s a prototype, and<br />
we’re constantly<br />
making small changes.<br />
I’ve been riding it<br />
since the beginning<br />
of this year – it’s the<br />
bike I rode it in Home<br />
Office. I like to have<br />
it kind of short and<br />
compact, with a higher<br />
handlebar so that it’s<br />
easier to get your front<br />
wheel up.”<br />
4. Crankbrothers<br />
pedals<br />
“<strong>The</strong> pedals are where<br />
you and your bike meet.<br />
Having a good pedal<br />
with a lot of grip is<br />
really important. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
have nice pins that go<br />
into your shoe so you<br />
stick to your pedal and<br />
don’t slip.”<br />
5. Continental<br />
tyres<br />
“Tyres are the<br />
connecting point<br />
between you and the<br />
ground, so having<br />
a tyre with a lot of grip<br />
and resistance can<br />
make the difference<br />
between crashing and<br />
not. Danny MacAskill<br />
developed these tyres<br />
specifically for trials<br />
a few years ago, and<br />
they make a big<br />
difference to my<br />
riding as they’re<br />
a little bit wider and<br />
the grip is better.”<br />
a story, actually, and get the whole<br />
village involved?’”<br />
Wibmer’s ‘escape’ from the somewhat<br />
blundering village policemen takes him<br />
over rooftops and dining tables, and is<br />
peppered with front flips, drops, and<br />
a balancing act on his handlebars. <strong>The</strong><br />
result: he won the competition, and the<br />
video has now had more than 60 million<br />
views. “I take things that everyone knows<br />
and give them a new twist,” says the<br />
former sports marketing student on the<br />
success of his concept. “Like in [his 2017<br />
video] Urban Freeride Lives, where I leap<br />
down stairs. Anyone can imagine that<br />
– unlike with a ramp that has dimensions<br />
the viewer can’t gauge so easily.”<br />
“I watch skaters<br />
and try to repeat<br />
their moves”<br />
Ideas constantly pop into Wibmer’s<br />
head when he’s out and about: “I see<br />
a wall and think how I could ride on it<br />
or jump over it.” On one occasion, he<br />
was scouting for locations in the Malta<br />
Valley in Carinthia, a region in the<br />
Eastern Alps, when a 200m-high dam<br />
wall with a security rail on top caught<br />
his eye. “I saw the handrail and<br />
thought to myself that if that thing<br />
was only 10cm off the ground, I’d<br />
be able to ride along it, no problem.<br />
So then I just had to blank out the<br />
knowledge that there was a 200m<br />
drop next to me.”<br />
A couple of days later, secured with<br />
a rope, Wibmer cycled along the rail<br />
– the width of one of his wheels – from<br />
one end of the dam wall to the other,<br />
with the yawning abyss just to his left.<br />
“It was an indescribable feeling,” he<br />
says, “especially afterwards.” Mere<br />
mortals might want to have a can of<br />
deodorant close at hand after watching<br />
the YouTube video, titled Riding a Bike<br />
on a 200m High Rail.<br />
74 THE RED BULLETIN
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Fabio Wibmer<br />
SCREW UP<br />
But even for a rider so experienced<br />
in creating something from nothing,<br />
success isn’t guaranteed. Wibmer says<br />
many of his ideas end up going nowhere,<br />
“because in reality they didn’t turn out<br />
like I saw them in my head. Or they end<br />
up being totally lame, even though I’d<br />
imagined they were ingenious”.<br />
However, according to the Austrian,<br />
that doesn’t matter. Part of being truly<br />
creative is allowing for mistakes and<br />
potential humiliation, and being prepared<br />
to do stuff that might end up being<br />
useless. In fact, Wibmer says, it’s often<br />
the very ideas that seem the most<br />
hopeless that are most worth pursuing.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>re are people who give up on<br />
a trick if they haven’t managed to pull it<br />
off after 30 goes,” he says. “If I can do a<br />
trick within 30 goes, I’m not interested.<br />
It can’t have been hard enough. I’m only<br />
excited by a trick if it takes me 200 or<br />
300 goes to do, like in the Home Office<br />
video where I flick a basketball into the<br />
basket with my rear wheel.”<br />
“Ideas and<br />
stress don’t<br />
mix. You have to<br />
find what helps<br />
you switch off”<br />
When tenacity alone isn’t enough,<br />
Wibmer still won’t give up. On those<br />
occasions, he falls back on his creativity<br />
to find a workaround that will help<br />
bring a good idea to fruition. “Once,<br />
when I was in the garage, a bike that I’d<br />
turned upside down for repair caught my<br />
eye,” he says. “I thought, ‘What would<br />
it be like to jump onto a bike in that<br />
position and create a mirror image?’”<br />
His first attempts left him battered<br />
and bruised. “<strong>The</strong>n I had the idea of<br />
fixing the lower bike to the spot and<br />
locking the brakes.” And the trick<br />
worked. You can see it now in the<br />
Home Office video, along with the<br />
basketball sequence.<br />
GET INSPIRED<br />
“I’ve always been inspired by what other<br />
people do,” says Wibmer, “and then<br />
I’ve made it my own.” This is what made<br />
a spring day in 2009 the most important<br />
of Wibmer’s life. <strong>The</strong> rider, then aged<br />
14, was searching the internet when<br />
he happened across Inspired Bicycles,<br />
a video by Scottish trials-bike titan<br />
Danny MacAskill. “I knew right away<br />
that I wanted to do something similar,”<br />
he says.<br />
Wibmer immediately switched his<br />
motocross bike for a trials bike and used<br />
MacAskill’s videos to teach himself<br />
tricks. He began to post videos of his<br />
progress, too, and gradually built up<br />
a community of his own. He first met<br />
his idol in 2012 at a <strong>Red</strong> Bull Wings<br />
Academy workshop. “I was so nervous<br />
I couldn’t speak,” says Wibmer. “He’s<br />
such a big inspiration.“<br />
<strong>The</strong>y stayed in touch, and MacAskill<br />
ended up making Wibmer an offer.<br />
MacAskill was looking for people to<br />
join him on a show tour, as part of his<br />
professional street trials team, Drop and<br />
Roll. Wibmer accepted. He’s now the<br />
youngest member of the team of four,<br />
who perform live across Europe, turning<br />
fans’ heads with flips of all kinds off<br />
ramps, down ladders and over bespoke<br />
obstacles. It’s all a far cry from the<br />
meadow in Oberpeischlach.<br />
FIND SOLUTIONS<br />
When it comes to seeking inspiration for<br />
his next challenge, Wibmer doesn’t limit<br />
himself to the bike community. Over the<br />
years, he’s learned the value of looking<br />
further afield. “I’m interested in how<br />
other communities or sports approach<br />
a problem,” he says. “Sometimes I<br />
watch skateboarders and try to repeat<br />
their moves. In Home Office, I jump off<br />
the roof and onto a tree, then slide<br />
down it sideways. I got that idea from<br />
parkour videos.”<br />
Once an idea is set, the Austrian gears<br />
up to test it out. “Ideas and stress don’t<br />
mix,” says Wibmer. “If you want to be<br />
creative, you need something to help you<br />
focus. You have to find the one thing that<br />
helps you switch off and come into your<br />
own.” Clearly, Wibmer has found his.<br />
Watch Fabio Wibmer’s videos, including<br />
Home Office, at youtube.com<br />
76 THE RED BULLETIN
spectral:on<br />
With its plush suspension and 150 mm of travel, the new<br />
Spectral:ON e-MTB exists to crush technical descents and nail<br />
fast turns. We could tell you all about the new carbon frame,<br />
fully-integrated battery, and modern, agile geometry. But to<br />
truly get it, you need to try it yourself. Test the Spectral:ON at<br />
selected events this spring. We’ll let the bike do the talking.<br />
canyon.com
ALPHATAURI.COM
VENTURE<br />
Enhance, equip, and experience your best life<br />
ROAD TO<br />
DISCOVERY<br />
<strong>The</strong> Tour d’Afrique<br />
TDA GLOBAL CYCLING<br />
79
VENTURE<br />
Travel<br />
“You really get to<br />
know yourself like<br />
never before”<br />
Canadian PE teacher Jérôme<br />
Blais on the four-month<br />
11,000km Tour d’Afrique<br />
M<br />
y head was about to explode. Too<br />
much sun and not enough fluids.<br />
Everything was just dust, heat, sweat and<br />
exhaustion. It was a brutal day. But when<br />
I arrived at the camp, I saw it wasn’t just<br />
me who felt that way – it looked like a field<br />
hospital. All I could see were emaciated<br />
faces. <strong>The</strong> doctor was running from one<br />
tent to the other. Some of my colleagues<br />
were lying flat with drips in their arms.<br />
Hard to believe this was just a biking trip.<br />
That said, it did cover the whole of Africa,<br />
from Cairo to Cape Town, passing<br />
through 10 countries, multiple climatic<br />
zones and the Equator. And we were still<br />
in Sudan, only a fifth of the way through.<br />
Why was I doing this to myself? I had<br />
never been to Africa, so the trip seemed<br />
perfect, the ultimate challenge, one you’d<br />
remember your whole life. I teach PE, so<br />
I’m pretty fit. I’d also done several solo<br />
bike trips around North America, each<br />
lasting months at a time. But I wasn’t<br />
prepared for what awaited me here.<br />
<strong>The</strong> idea is very simple: you can cycle<br />
the whole way – more than 11,000km in<br />
four months (33 others just as crazy as<br />
me also went for that option) – or join for<br />
shorter stages. A truck transports the<br />
equipment, tents, spare parts and food,<br />
and we’re in the saddle, on set routes, for<br />
between 80-200km a day. A team from<br />
TDA Global Cycling, a company that<br />
developed out of an NGO for used bikes,<br />
came up with the idea. It used to be a<br />
race. Some of the participants still see it<br />
that way. But for most – me included –<br />
it’s not about times but the experience.<br />
<strong>The</strong> start of the tour, in Egypt, already felt<br />
odd. We set off in January [2019], so our<br />
bodies were in winter mode, but here we<br />
were, struggling our way through 35°C in<br />
the shade – except there wasn’t any on<br />
the road, sadly. Plus you’re riding as part<br />
of a military convoy. As a cyclist, you’re<br />
an object of curiosity on Egyptian roads,<br />
which isn’t an advantage when it comes<br />
<strong>The</strong> heat is on: Jérôme Blais in the saddle on the 2019 Tour D’Afrique<br />
to safety in traffic. So we were escorted<br />
by trucks and armed soldiers. It was<br />
a strange feeling: both oppressive and<br />
reassuring at the same time.<br />
Our experiences during the tour soon<br />
made us forget those moments. We saw<br />
the Sphinx in Egypt and cycled along the<br />
Nile to Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simbel,<br />
then into the Ethiopian Highlands, through<br />
lonely deserts in Kenya and Namibia,<br />
safari hotspots in Tanzania and Botswana,<br />
and finally arrived at Table Mountain in<br />
Cape Town. You travel much more slowly<br />
on a bike. You really earn these places.<br />
And the experience is so much more<br />
intense when they’re right there in front<br />
of you. You’re guaranteed goosebumps.<br />
But we had to work for it. I didn’t find the<br />
physical strain the greatest challenge –<br />
what’s much more difficult is having no<br />
control over your schedule. What I’m<br />
talking about here is gastrointestinal<br />
viruses. Everyone gets struck down,<br />
whether you like it or not. If you’re lucky,<br />
you’ll get hit on a day off. I wasn’t – we<br />
were mid-stage. If I’m riding on my own,<br />
I take a break and get well again. Luckily,<br />
the supply truck drove me part of the way.<br />
But we weren’t the only ones to suffer;<br />
our equipment did, too. Sand, dust, filth,<br />
never-ending dirt tracks – no bike can<br />
stick that for long. I didn’t get a flat until<br />
Malawi, more than 7,000km in, but after<br />
I’d had 11 more I stopped counting. I had<br />
80 THE RED BULLETIN
VENTURE<br />
Travel<br />
TDA GLOBAL CYCLING FLORIAN STURM<br />
Scenic route: Blue Nile Gorge in the Ethiopian Highlands has dramatic views<br />
Lifesaver: the supply truck carries vital<br />
equipment, tents, spare parts and food<br />
Crossing the<br />
continent<br />
Start: Cairo, Egypt<br />
Finish: Cape Town, South Africa<br />
Official distance: 11,222km<br />
In existence since: 2003 (the first outing<br />
broke the Guinness record for the fastest<br />
crossing of Africa under one’s own steam)<br />
Countries traversed: Egypt, Sudan,<br />
Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi,<br />
Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa<br />
Areas passed through: the banks of the<br />
Nile, the Ethiopian Highlands, Lake Malawi,<br />
the Victoria Falls, the Kalahari Desert<br />
Duration: 115 days (86 on the bike,<br />
25 rest days, four travel days)<br />
Price: US$17,400 (£13,800)<br />
Africa<br />
Cairo, Egypt<br />
Cape Town, South Africa<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 81
VENTURE<br />
Travel<br />
Riding out<br />
trouble<br />
Got a flat tyre in the<br />
Ethiopian Highlands, but<br />
no tools? All you need is<br />
a shoelace and a field<br />
1<br />
Remove the<br />
outer tyre and tube<br />
from the rim<br />
2<br />
Tie a shoelace tightly<br />
over and next to the spot<br />
with the puncture. Don’t<br />
go easy on the knots<br />
Head for the hills: the riders pass through Kenya, almost halfway into the tour<br />
the most problems in Namibia, as less<br />
than 10 per cent of the road network there<br />
is tarmac. At least I’m now an expert at<br />
patching up holes by the side of the road.<br />
<strong>The</strong> team spirit that comes about on a<br />
tour like this is great. When you’re on the<br />
bike, you may be fighting just for yourself<br />
against the heat, the potholes, the climbs<br />
and the headwind, but as soon as the<br />
others see you’re in difficulty and might<br />
even want to give up on that stage, they<br />
urge you on until you’re pedalling again.<br />
Some of your teammates become real<br />
friends as you sit around the campfire in<br />
the evenings; I’m still in touch with them.<br />
I had to fight against exhaustion, heat<br />
stroke, diarrhoea, and dips in motivation.<br />
But even if the tour really took it out of<br />
me, I never considered retiring. You really<br />
get to know yourself like never before. I’ve<br />
been much more relaxed and open in the<br />
way I live since the adventure came to an<br />
end. I’ve realised what a good life I have,<br />
and that many of our problems aren’t<br />
really problems at all. Pretty amazing<br />
what a bike tour like this can do to you.<br />
<strong>The</strong> next Tour d’Afrique runs from 15 Jan<br />
to 8 May 2021; tdaglobalcycling.com<br />
Stop and gape<br />
Make a detour to visit these three marvels<br />
City of the Dead<br />
(Cairo, Egypt)<br />
It is estimated that around<br />
half a million people live here<br />
among the graves, family<br />
mausoleums and lavishly<br />
decorated burial sites.<br />
Devil’s Pool<br />
(Livingstone, Zambia)<br />
A natural pool (pictured)<br />
with a stunningly good view<br />
on the edge of Victoria Falls,<br />
the world’s largest waterfall.<br />
Leper Tree<br />
(Liwonde, Malawi)<br />
A hollowed-out baobab that<br />
became a final resting place<br />
for lepers, who, as recently<br />
as the 1950s, couldn’t be<br />
buried in Malawi.<br />
3<br />
Fill the outer tyre<br />
with as much grass<br />
or as many leaves<br />
as you can before<br />
replacing the tube<br />
4<br />
Pump up the tyre<br />
and carefully continue<br />
on your way until you<br />
find a colleague with a<br />
professional repair kit.<br />
Items that Jérôme Blais<br />
advises you pack for the trip:<br />
Baby wipes<br />
Essential to combat sweat,<br />
sunscreen, and a lack of showers<br />
Stretcher bed<br />
Forget roll mats and air mattresses –<br />
they get soaked when heavy rain hits<br />
Clothes brush<br />
Being able to brush the filth from<br />
your clothes from time to time is<br />
surprisingly re-humanising<br />
CLICK PICTUREWORKS AFRICA LTD, ALAMY SASCHA BIERL<br />
82 THE RED BULLETIN
VENTURE<br />
Equipment<br />
SKATE<br />
Artful<br />
dodgers<br />
<strong>The</strong> flipside of board design<br />
Design by US artist<br />
Tallboy (@tallboy666),<br />
whose work is influenced<br />
by legendary cartoonists<br />
Robert Crumb and<br />
S Clay Wilson<br />
Once, skateboards sported<br />
designs on top. <strong>The</strong>n came grip<br />
tape. But the art lives on below<br />
deck. Pioneers like VC Johnson<br />
for Powell-Peralta (‘Flame Face’<br />
1980s reissue, top left), and Jim<br />
Phillips, creator of Santa Cruz’s<br />
‘Screaming Hand’ (remixed<br />
bottom right), inspired future<br />
generations of inkers. Clockwise<br />
from top left: POWELL-PERALTA<br />
Claus Grabke board, powellperalta.com;<br />
BANZAI Speed<br />
Seal wheels and trucks,<br />
banzaiskate.com; SANTA CRUZ<br />
Winkowski Dope Planet VX and<br />
Echo Chamber Preissue boards,<br />
santacruzskateboards.eu;<br />
VANS Sk8-Hi shoes, vans.co.uk;<br />
KROOKED Zip Ziiiiiiinger board,<br />
blacksheepstore.co.uk; ARBOR<br />
Martillo Legacy board,<br />
arborcollective.com<br />
<strong>The</strong> Martillo<br />
(Spanish for<br />
hammer) is<br />
so-named because<br />
of its blunt tip.<br />
Arbor also makes<br />
a bullet-nosed<br />
Pistola and<br />
a spoon-tipped<br />
Cucharon<br />
TIM KENT<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 83
VENTURE<br />
Fitness<br />
IMPROVE<br />
In the<br />
mind’s eye<br />
Most glasses enhance your eyesight.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se exercise the brain<br />
In 2012, Carlin Isles earned<br />
himself the tag of “rugby’s<br />
fastest player”. <strong>The</strong> US star’s<br />
speed is undeniable: at the<br />
time, he could cover 20m<br />
0.22 seconds faster than<br />
Usain Bolt. But Isles sees it<br />
from a different perspective<br />
– for him, it seems the world<br />
has slowed down. And this is<br />
down to a technique he uses:<br />
strobe training.<br />
For this, athletes in<br />
training wear stroboscopic<br />
glasses with liquid-crystal<br />
lenses that flicker between<br />
transparency and opacity, as<br />
if under a strobe light. Being<br />
momentarily blinded might<br />
seem counterintuitive, but it<br />
actually exercises the senses,<br />
forcing the brain to work<br />
overtime to fill in the gaps in<br />
visual information, improving<br />
spacial awareness and<br />
reaction times. This ‘blindness’<br />
can be set to anything from<br />
100ms to more than a second;<br />
the longer the athlete is in the<br />
dark, the greater the brain is<br />
challenged. Studies show that<br />
it enhances peripheral vision,<br />
eliminates the dominance of<br />
one eye, and helps the inner<br />
ear track objects.<br />
An app is used to set the duration<br />
of the ‘blindness’ phases as well as<br />
the difficulty level of the session<br />
<strong>The</strong> technique can be traced<br />
back to basketball legend<br />
Michael Jordan’s time with<br />
the Chicago Bulls in the ’80s<br />
and ’90s, when he trained<br />
under strobe lighting to adjust<br />
to camera flashes on court.<br />
His mind, essentially, had to<br />
compensate for being blinded<br />
continually during a game.<br />
Today, this is a recognised<br />
sports science, and US firm<br />
Senaptec’s Strobe glasses<br />
are used by athletes in<br />
various disciplines, including<br />
the US shooting team and, of<br />
course, Isles, who wears them<br />
for 15 minutes several<br />
times a week. “My<br />
hand-eye coordination<br />
has greatly improved,”<br />
says the 30-year-old.<br />
“Neither the pace nor<br />
distractions bother me.<br />
It’s almost like the ball is<br />
approaching in slow motion.”<br />
senaptec.com<br />
“Now, it’s almost like<br />
the ball is approaching<br />
in slow motion”<br />
Carlin Isles, 30, rugby player<br />
Lightning<br />
responses<br />
Senaptec CEO Joe<br />
Bingold on how to<br />
improve coordination<br />
even without strobes<br />
FAST TURN<br />
“Turn your back on your<br />
partner and stand 5m<br />
apart. When your partner<br />
throws, they shout, ‘Go.’<br />
Only then do you turn and<br />
try to catch the ball.”<br />
UP THE ANTE<br />
“Make the exercise more<br />
difficult by reducing<br />
distance, using a smaller<br />
ball, or closing your eyes<br />
before turning around.”<br />
GOING SOLO<br />
“Mask one lens of your<br />
sunglasses or close one<br />
eye, then try some basic<br />
running drills.”<br />
Quick start: prior to taking up rugby in 2012, Ohio-born Isles was a<br />
talented track-and-field athlete with college records to his name<br />
MARV WATSON/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, SENAPTEC.COM FLORIAN STURM TOM MACKINGER<br />
84 THE RED BULLETIN
VENTURE<br />
Equipment<br />
TRAIN<br />
<strong>The</strong> not-sodumb<br />
bell<br />
JaxJox KettlebellConnect<br />
<strong>The</strong> kettlebell is one of the<br />
earliest pieces of modern<br />
gym equipment – ancient<br />
societies including the<br />
Greeks are known to have<br />
used handled weights.<br />
Today’s version derives<br />
from the Russian girya,<br />
a block of cast-iron that<br />
was used to weigh crops in<br />
the 18th century and was<br />
subsequently toted by<br />
circus strongmen. Its<br />
design and methodology<br />
have remained much the<br />
same over the years: with<br />
the centre of gravity below<br />
the handle, exercises such<br />
as ‘the swing’ and ‘clean<br />
and jerk’ work the whole<br />
body, building usable<br />
strength. Now, this<br />
dumbest of bells has been<br />
given 21st-century smarts,<br />
connecting to your phone<br />
and loading six ‘bullet<br />
weights’ – from 5.5kg to<br />
19kg – from a stack in its<br />
charging station. All of<br />
which will prevent your<br />
home from becoming as<br />
cluttered as an Imperial<br />
Russian farm. jaxjox.com<br />
TIM KENT<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 85
VENTURE<br />
Equipment<br />
LISTEN<br />
Champion<br />
sound<br />
Our edit of the best<br />
house-party tech<br />
Virtual festivals, concerts<br />
inside video games, a digital<br />
carnival, professionally made<br />
cocktails delivered direct to<br />
your home – <strong>2020</strong> was the<br />
year the house party evolved<br />
to the next level. Though<br />
born of unhappy necessity,<br />
this situation has shown how<br />
resourceful we humans can<br />
be when looking for ways to<br />
share good times. Society<br />
may now be slowly emerging<br />
into the new normal, but the<br />
state-of-the-art house party is<br />
here to stay. Here’s what you<br />
need in your home set-up…<br />
Clockwise from left:<br />
FOCAL Aria 926 floorstanding<br />
speakers feature cones woven<br />
from flax for a natural sound<br />
and tight bass; focal.com. <strong>The</strong><br />
NAIM Uniti Star is a complete<br />
music centre that streams<br />
from services such as Spotify,<br />
wirelessly connects to your<br />
music player via AirPlay,<br />
Chromecast and Bluetooth,<br />
and has a CD drive to rip tunes<br />
or export them to the built-in<br />
hard drive; naimaudio.com.<br />
<strong>The</strong> PIONEER DDJ-800 pro DJ<br />
controller has jog controls, a<br />
mixer and performance pads<br />
in a club-style layout, plus a<br />
feedback reducer to prevent<br />
microphone ‘howl’ if the<br />
MC gets to close to the<br />
speakers; pioneerdj.com.<br />
<strong>The</strong> URBANISTA Brisbane<br />
Bluetooth speaker gives 10<br />
hours of play time; urbanista.<br />
com. SKULLCANDY Crusher<br />
noise-cancelling headphones<br />
(shown in black and deep red)<br />
offer a personalised audio<br />
set-up via an app; skullcandy.<br />
co.uk. URBANISTA London<br />
wireless earphones with<br />
active noise-cancelling allow<br />
you to filter out ambient<br />
noise; urbanista.com. <strong>The</strong><br />
PIONEER XDJ-RR all-in-one<br />
DJ system has an LCD screen<br />
for monitoring BPM and<br />
waveforms; pioneerdj.com.<br />
TIM KENT<br />
86 THE RED BULLETIN
VENTURE<br />
Equipment<br />
LCD displays on the<br />
dials of the Pioneer DDJ-<br />
800 are customisable<br />
to show everything from<br />
BPMs to hot cues and<br />
loop points<br />
<strong>The</strong> aluminium/<br />
magnesium tweeter at the<br />
top of these Focal speakers<br />
is suspended in Poron – a<br />
memory foam that greatly<br />
reduces sound distortion<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 87
VENTURE<br />
Equipment<br />
Any decent driver’s watch<br />
should ideally feature a<br />
chronograph (stopwatch)<br />
and tachymeter (numeric<br />
bezel for calculating fuel<br />
use, distance and speed);<br />
some degree of motoring<br />
heritage is a plus, too.<br />
Crucially, it must look<br />
great when you’re gripping<br />
the wheel. From left:<br />
TISSOT Alpine On Board<br />
Automatic Chronograph,<br />
tissotwatches.com;<br />
BREMONT Jaguar MKII<br />
White, bremont.com;<br />
ZENITH Defy El Primero<br />
21, zenith-watches.com;<br />
ORIS Movember Edition<br />
2019, oris.ch<br />
WEAR<br />
Speed<br />
dials<br />
Your quick guide to<br />
identifying a good<br />
driver’s watch<br />
TIM KENT<br />
88 THE RED BULLETIN
VENTURE<br />
Equipment<br />
PROTECT<br />
Shades of<br />
greatness<br />
Sunglasses that are fun glasses<br />
TIM KENT<br />
From prehistoric times,<br />
Arctic tribes have worn<br />
slitted walrus ivory over<br />
their eyes to block out<br />
the sun. Emperor Nero<br />
would watch gladiatorial<br />
battles through cutemerald<br />
lenses. Today’s<br />
shades are more hightech<br />
and easier to<br />
obtain. Clockwise from<br />
top: DRAGON Renew<br />
shades with Lumalens,<br />
dragonalliance.com;<br />
SPECT EYEWEAR Fly<br />
Mirrored shades,<br />
specteyewear.com;<br />
RAY-BAN Nomad shades,<br />
ray-ban.com; MELON<br />
OPTICS Layback shades,<br />
melonoptics.com;<br />
OAKLEY Frogskins 35th<br />
Anniversary shades<br />
with Prizm lenses,<br />
oakley.com; SPEKTRUM<br />
Anjan Black shades,<br />
spektrumsports.com<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 89
VENTURE<br />
Equipment<br />
<strong>The</strong> Razer Blade 15 is<br />
the world’s smallest<br />
gaming laptop – as<br />
thin as 18mm, and just<br />
over 2kg in weight<br />
PLAY<br />
Open-world<br />
adventure<br />
Engage in pro-level gaming on the go<br />
Whether you’re taking part in<br />
manoeuvres in Call of Duty:<br />
Warzone’s fictitious city of<br />
Verdansk or swimming around<br />
Battle Royale Island in Fortnite,<br />
it’s possible to traverse the<br />
vast real world at the same<br />
time. Clockwise from top left:<br />
HYPERX Cloud Earbuds<br />
gaming headphones with mic,<br />
hyperxgaming.com; RAZER<br />
Blade 15 gaming laptop, razer.<br />
com; ASUS ROG Strix Impact II<br />
mouse and ROG Ranger BP3703<br />
modular gaming backpack,<br />
asus.com; OMNICHARGE Omni<br />
20+ charger, omnicharge.co;<br />
HYPERX Cloud Flight S<br />
wireless gaming headset,<br />
hyperxgaming.com; NINTENDO<br />
Switch Lite, nintendo.co.uk<br />
TIM KENT<br />
90 THE RED BULLETIN
VENTURE<br />
Gaming<br />
CONTEMPLATE<br />
<strong>The</strong> logical<br />
approach<br />
Video games often help us escape<br />
reality, but here’s one that might<br />
enable us to see it more clearly<br />
SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT MATT RAY<br />
To say <strong>2020</strong> has been a tough<br />
year is an understatement, but<br />
video gaming has provided<br />
some light relief, with even<br />
the World Health Organisation<br />
– which previously warned<br />
against gaming addiction –<br />
recommending it as a way of<br />
coping with lockdown.<br />
One of the year’s biggest<br />
games, <strong>The</strong> Last of Us Part II,<br />
is all about coping when<br />
everything goes to hell. In this<br />
survival-horror adventure,<br />
set in a post-pandemic world,<br />
main character Ellie must<br />
demonstrate calm, resilience<br />
and self-reliance – qualities<br />
we might all learn from, and<br />
key traits of the philosophy<br />
known as stoicism.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> core idea is that your<br />
wellbeing is dependent on your<br />
mental state, your character,”<br />
says stoic philosopher John<br />
Sellars. Rather than worrying<br />
about external factors beyond<br />
your control, develop a clearer<br />
perception of what is within<br />
your power to affect, and take<br />
rational actions based on this.<br />
In short, it’s not all doom and<br />
gloom. Here are five stoic<br />
lessons from the game that<br />
you can apply to your own<br />
everyday challenges…<br />
Don’t buy into fear<br />
One of the enduring images<br />
from early lockdown is of<br />
panic-buying. <strong>The</strong> Last of Us<br />
Part II takes this to its logical<br />
conclusion as survivors battle<br />
not only zombies, known as<br />
‘the infected’, but each other.<br />
“How much stuff were people<br />
buying that they didn’t need?”<br />
asks Sellars. “It’s an immediate<br />
emotional response, rather<br />
than one that’s been thought<br />
Strings of life: stoicism is one of the many traits that Ellie depends upon in <strong>The</strong> Last of Us Part II<br />
through. None of that external<br />
stuff directly contributes to<br />
our happiness. Slow down,<br />
adopt a wider perspective.”<br />
Keep calm, carry on<br />
A common trope in postapocalyptic<br />
games is the<br />
resilient survivor drawing on<br />
an internal well of courage.<br />
This, says Sellars, is stoic.<br />
“[Roman Emperor] Marcus<br />
Aurelius, in his Meditations,<br />
describes his ‘inner citadel’ –<br />
that bit inside his control that<br />
nothing can damage unless he<br />
lets it in. If you judge a situation<br />
to be terrible, it will generate<br />
fear, and that can result in bad<br />
judgements.” Instead, realise<br />
that while you cannot control<br />
the circumstances, you are<br />
in charge of your response.<br />
Stay positive<br />
Pulling through seemingly<br />
unsurvivable situations<br />
requires optimism. “[Roman<br />
stoic philosopher] Seneca<br />
the Younger said, ‘Disaster is<br />
virtue’s opportunity.’ Some<br />
people step up, like Captain<br />
Tom [Moore, the British WWII<br />
Army veteran who raised £32<br />
million for charity] and people<br />
clapping for the NHS or<br />
looking out for vulnerable<br />
neighbours. In adverse<br />
circumstances, you discover<br />
what people are really like.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are always positives.”<br />
See the bigger picture<br />
In <strong>The</strong> Last of Us Part II,<br />
Ellie is estranged from the<br />
protagonist of the original<br />
John Sellars<br />
A philosophy lecturer at Royal<br />
Holloway, University of London, and<br />
research fellow at King’s College<br />
London, Sellars has written widely<br />
on stoicism. His book Lessons in<br />
Stoicism is out in paperback on<br />
October 1. johnsellars.org.uk<br />
2013 game, her father figure<br />
Joel, which is something that<br />
many family groups can<br />
relate to after recent months.<br />
Stoicism, however, views our<br />
interconnectivity on a much<br />
grander scale. “<strong>The</strong>re’s a<br />
concept of cosmopolitanism<br />
– that everyone is a fellow<br />
citizen of a single, global<br />
community,” says Sellars.<br />
“It downplays trivial<br />
differences [such as tribalism<br />
or nationality] and focuses<br />
instead on the fact that we<br />
are all social human beings<br />
with shared rationality.”<br />
Appreciate life<br />
Unlike most video games,<br />
<strong>The</strong> Last of Us Part II delivers<br />
an empathetic view of death,<br />
even of your adversaries.<br />
“That we constantly reflect<br />
on our own mortality is<br />
important,” says Sellars. “Part<br />
of that is just being realistic,<br />
but it’s also to stress the value<br />
of our own time. We only have<br />
a limited amount – the more<br />
we understand that, the better<br />
we can prioritise the things<br />
that are most important.”<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 91
10 ISSUES<br />
getredbulletin.com<br />
£20<br />
BEYOND THE ORDINARY<br />
<strong>The</strong> next issue is out on Tuesday 8 <strong>September</strong> with London Evening Standard.<br />
Also available across the <strong>UK</strong> at airports, universities, and selected supermarkets and retail stores.<br />
Read more at theredbulletin.com<br />
TYRONE BRADLEY/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
VENTURE<br />
Calendar<br />
13<br />
August to 19 <strong>September</strong><br />
DRIFT MASTERS EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP<br />
<strong>The</strong> sporting calendar was sent into a spin earlier this year – but, for one returning competition,<br />
spinning is what its athletes are relishing coming back to. Drift racing involves drivers precisely<br />
manoeuvring around custom-built circuits by over-steering and counter-steering at speed round<br />
the turns. Since the launch of the European Championship in 2014, the series has rapidly grown<br />
in scale and popularity to become today’s multi-region European race schedule. <strong>The</strong>se three<br />
livestreamed weekends see the doyens of drift head to Bikernieki Circuit in Latvia (Aug 14-15),<br />
PS Racing Center in Austria (Sep 5-6) and Mondello Park in Ireland (Sep 19-20). redbull.com<br />
11<br />
August to 6 <strong>September</strong><br />
WAVELENGTH<br />
DRIVE-IN CINEMA<br />
Every August, the Boardmasters<br />
sport and music festival is staged<br />
on the cliff-tops at Watergate Bay in<br />
Cornwall. Following the cancellation<br />
of this year’s event, however, the site<br />
will instead host a series of classic<br />
movies. <strong>The</strong>re’s surfing in the line-up,<br />
in the form of 1991’s Keanu-vs-Swayze<br />
action epic Point Break and 1995’s<br />
Blue Juice, as well as skate classics<br />
Dogtown and Z-Boys and Back to the<br />
Future. wavelengthmag.com<br />
11<br />
August to<br />
9 October<br />
BREATH IS<br />
INVISIBLE<br />
June 14 was the threeyear<br />
anniversary of the<br />
Grenfell Tower fire.<br />
Three weeks later, the<br />
works of artist Khadija<br />
Saye, who died in the<br />
fire, were exhibited<br />
less than a mile away.<br />
This public art project,<br />
which aims to address<br />
social injustice,<br />
continues with pieces<br />
created by artists<br />
Martyn Ware, Zachary<br />
Eastwood-Bloom<br />
and Joy Gregory in<br />
collaboration with<br />
the local community.<br />
236 Westbourne<br />
Grove, London;<br />
breathisinvisible.com<br />
9<br />
to 15 <strong>September</strong><br />
OPEN CITY<br />
DOCUMENTARY<br />
FESTIVAL<br />
Last year, more than<br />
5,000 people attended<br />
this annual curation of<br />
some of the best works<br />
in documentary and<br />
non-fiction filmmaking.<br />
This year, the event<br />
will be a digital edition,<br />
with the 24 selected<br />
films available as<br />
video-on-demand,<br />
including pre-recorded<br />
Q&A sessions, and a<br />
web-based tour of the<br />
popular Expanded<br />
Realities audio-visual<br />
art installations.<br />
opencitylondon.com<br />
94 THE RED BULLETIN
VENTURE<br />
Calendar<br />
11<br />
11<br />
August onwards<br />
AROUND<br />
THE WORLD<br />
JORDAN BUTTERS/DMEC/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, ALAMY, TOYIN OJIH ODUTOLA,<br />
DEAN TREML/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, CHRISTIAN PONDELLA/RED BULL CONTENT POOL<br />
August to<br />
24 January<br />
TOYIN OJIH<br />
ODUTOLA<br />
Odutola is a Nigerian-<br />
American artist whose<br />
work – created with<br />
drawing materials<br />
and, most famously,<br />
black pen ink – has<br />
drawn acclaim for<br />
challenging notions<br />
of skin colour and<br />
‘Blackness’ in society.<br />
Her latest exhibition, A<br />
Countervailing <strong>The</strong>ory,<br />
is an imagined ancient<br />
myth set in a surreal<br />
landscape inspired by<br />
the unique geology of<br />
Nigeria’s Plateau State<br />
and told in 40 drawings<br />
created in pastel,<br />
chalk and charcoal.<br />
Accompanied by a<br />
soundscape from<br />
music producer Peter<br />
Adjaye (aka AJ Kwame)<br />
and a publication from<br />
author Zadie Smith,<br />
it was set to debut at<br />
the Barbican in March,<br />
but then lockdown<br />
took effect. Now, we<br />
can examine the work<br />
– unfurled across the<br />
90m gallery space of<br />
<strong>The</strong> Curve – through<br />
the lens of a year that<br />
has reframed our<br />
perceptions of society,<br />
racial identity and<br />
cultural mythology.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Barbican, London;<br />
barbican.org.uk<br />
In recent years, the popularity<br />
of freestyle football – the<br />
balletic art of ball control<br />
through tricks, dance and<br />
acrobatics – has exploded in<br />
popularity. This documentary<br />
showcases the dexterous sport<br />
in dazzling detail, following<br />
10 freestylers from different<br />
cultures and backgrounds as<br />
they independently set off on<br />
a journey that could bring<br />
them all together at a single<br />
destination – the <strong>Red</strong> Bull<br />
Street Style World Final in<br />
Miami, Florida – where only<br />
one can claim the sport’s<br />
most coveted title: World<br />
Champion. It’s a tale full of<br />
emotion, adventure and,<br />
most important of all, epic<br />
freestyle tricks. redbull.com<br />
9<strong>September</strong><br />
THE LAST<br />
ASCENT<br />
Canadian Will Gadd is one<br />
of the world’s greatest ice<br />
climbers, but it’s a pursuit<br />
of diminishing returns. In<br />
2015, he scaled Mount<br />
Kilimanjaro only to find the<br />
ice structures he’d seen in<br />
photographs had shrunk.<br />
Between 1912 and 2011,<br />
85 per cent of glacial ice on<br />
the mountain in Tanzania<br />
had melted, with all of it<br />
predicted to disappear by<br />
<strong>2020</strong>. This documentary<br />
follows Gadd’s emotional<br />
return to Kilimanjaro’s<br />
peak, one made all the<br />
more deadly by the ice’s<br />
rapid melt. redbull.com<br />
THE RED BULLETIN 95
Imprint<br />
GLOBAL TEAM<br />
THE RED<br />
BULLETIN<br />
WORLDWIDE<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Red</strong> <strong>Bulletin</strong><br />
is published in<br />
six countries. This is<br />
the cover of our Swiss<br />
issue for <strong>September</strong>,<br />
which features cyclocross<br />
and cross-country<br />
mountain bike rider<br />
Lars Forster…<br />
For more stories<br />
beyond the ordinary,<br />
go to: redbulletin.com<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Red</strong> <strong>Bulletin</strong> <strong>UK</strong>.<br />
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96 THE RED BULLETIN
PROMOTION<br />
RAZER<br />
SOUND OF<br />
VICTORY<br />
Razer’s BlackShark V2 gaming headset<br />
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Players at the pinnacle of esports<br />
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for regular headphone use.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Razer BlackShark V2 headset<br />
connects to games controllers via a<br />
standard 3.5mm jack and includes a<br />
USB Sound Card for PCs. This audio<br />
enhancer includes in-line controls<br />
such as Mic Boost, Voice Gate,<br />
Volume Normalization, Mic Equalizer<br />
and Ambient Noise <strong>Red</strong>uction, to<br />
carry vital commands clearly across<br />
noisy battle arenas. <strong>The</strong>se are, in<br />
short, the only headphones that<br />
pro gamers need to be the best.<br />
razer.com/blackshark-v2<br />
RAZER’S<br />
EDGE<br />
<strong>The</strong> BlackShark<br />
V2 headset<br />
delivers accurate<br />
positional audio<br />
thanks to Razer’s<br />
co-development<br />
of the THX Spatial<br />
Audio app, which<br />
creates a 3D<br />
soundfield from<br />
the two TriForce<br />
Titanium 50mm<br />
audio drivers.<br />
razer.com/thxspatial-audio
Action highlight<br />
All flip, no flop<br />
In case you couldn’t tell, Dimitris Kyrsanidis loves the beach. “<strong>The</strong> San Blas<br />
islands [in Panama] were one of a kind,” says the <strong>The</strong>ssaloniki-born freerunner.<br />
This parkour project, shot on the tropical coast of central America in February<br />
this year, was titled From the Office to the After Office. Fortunately, Kyrsanidis’<br />
line of business doesn’t require a suit. Watch him in action at redbull.com.<br />
<strong>The</strong> next<br />
issue of<br />
THE RED BULLETIN<br />
is out on<br />
<strong>September</strong> 8<br />
EDUARDO VASQUEZ/RED BULL CONTENT POOL<br />
98 THE RED BULLETIN
<strong>2020</strong><br />
READY TO JOIN<br />
THE CHARGE?<br />
OTL<br />
<strong>The</strong> aston martin red bull racing<br />
official teamline <strong>2020</strong> has LANDED.<br />
available worldwide now at<br />
redbullsop.com / redbullshopus.com<br />
and in the red bull world stores in<br />
salzburg and graz.