After the success of last year’s WeCanFly event, round two will be taking place this summer (Tuesday the 7th of August at Doomed Gallery in Dalston) and pre hype comes in the form of Sidewalk pal and all round boss Jenna Selby‘s part from WeCanFly2. WeCanFly was a multimedia exhibition which saw a documentary by Kelli Watson, which focused on how skateboarding and creativity are intertwined, accompanied by an exhibition of photos and artwork as well as work from Skate Interiors and a spoken word performance from Mat Lloyd.
We don’t know yet who else is involved this year, but if this snippet (and last year’s film, which you can scroll down to watch) is anything to go by then it should be a good one. Press play to hear Jenna break down how she got into skateboarding film making and photography, with skating from Jenna, Lucy Adams, Beth Kerins, Georgie Winter, Charlie Spelzini and Alex Barton, then keep the date saved and keep your eyes peeled for further info on this year’s event!
You can also read some words with Jenna about her recent video Scratch the Surface in the interview we conducted last year.
In case you missed it, check out the original film by Kelli Watson as well as a statement of the project’s intended goals and areas of study;
“WeCanFly started production in October 2016. The aim of the project: to investigate how and why skateboarders seem to be inherently creative people? As the project evolved it began to take a more ethnographic approach; transforming it into a cultural exploration. It became a study of a truly amazing subculture whose ideologies centre around the notion of freedom and creativity.
WeCanFly became a film about more than just the act of creating an art-form and skateboarding. It is about how a group of people’s set of cultural values and philosophies transpire into what they create both on the board and their arts.
WeCanFly was released in August 2017, show casing firstly at Doomed Gallery in London and then at The Adhoc Creative hub in Vienna in October 2017. The film is also available in an interactive context on this website.
WeCanFly’s Director Kelli Watson is a Lecturer at a College of Further Education in the South East of England and aims to use her studies to support the positive reinforcement of skateboarding as a means of developing resilience, independence and creativity.
WeCanFly2 is currently in production and is due to be released in August 2018. The film takes on a more academic approach to coincide with Kelli’s Ph.d goals, at the heart of this which is the question: How can the productivity, autonomy and resilience that skateboarders demonstrate on the board be harnessed in an educational context to develop teaching and learning methods for disenfranchised young people?”
