Travel is undoubtedly and universally recognized as one of those sublime rituals that can make way for the reset of our individual and collective perspective. When moving to new spaces and places, everything, even the mundane, is reborn.
Perhaps this is why skateboarders, practitioners of constant “travel” (or at least the re-envisioning of local surroundings) make for some of the best subjects in the creation of nomadic art and narratives. So when companies like New Balance Numeric fly their incredible skate team—Tom Karangelov, Marquise Henry, Marius Syvanen, Anthony Schultz, and Axel Cruysberghs—out to Far Eastern destinations like Seoul, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, you know it’s going to make for some incredible moments.
“Sankhara” is the phenomenally cinematic result of said trip. Filmed by Russell Houghten and James Messina for the Los Angeles-based Brindle Collective Production, the five-minute short plays more like a visual documentary than a skate video. Scored to the industrial and airy music of L.A. Takedown, the video really captures the breath and life force of the beautiful Asian cities and sectors visited, along with the pulse and beauty of technical and refined street skateboarding.
The shots and cuts are fast, dynamic, aerial, and even voyeuristic at times, giving the viewer an all-encompassing experience of the locations and architecture, not just the skateboarding. What could’ve dreadfully wound up as just an over-produced, capitalistic ad for the 345 shoe actually holds soulful weight and artistic value, and that’s something worth recognizing.
Skateboarding, in new shoes or not, can propel us to some very new physical and spiritual dimensions.
