Brujas Training Facility

Performance Space New York, May 25–June 9, 2018.

Jenny Schlenzka, artistic director of Performance Space New York, commissioned this installation for a three week residency by the NYC-based feminist skate collective and streetwear brand Brujas. The installation functions as a skate spot for open skate sessions, and also as a social hub for lectures and workshops hosted by Brujas. Having lived in the East Village for many years, Schlenzka used to watch the skaters at Thompkins Square Park (referred to within the NYC skate community as Training Facility) on weekends, and wanted to bring the energy see saw there into Performance Space New York, which is also located in the East Village. Skateboarding is prohibited in most street skating destinations in NYC, so Brujas Training Facility offers a cop-free environment for skaters. The facility is also air-conditioned with a theater-quality sound system accessible to skaters via bluetooth. The set design re-purposes theatrical staging equipment–normally used by Performance Space New York for stages and seating platforms–into a series of flat and angled ledges and manual pads. Pink concrete slabs secured to the tops of the staging platforms transform them into skate-able and grind-able surfaces. Since Brujas started in 2014 they have used the color pink to establish gender neutrality within skateboarding culture. The use of pink concrete co-opts the traditionally gray and industrial skate obstacle, introducing warmth and reducing the objects into a series of horizontal pink planes in a black space. 
Brujas Training Facility was also used to host Brujas’s Anti Prom III, the gender-queering party described by the New York Times as “an effervescent celebration of people usually sidelined by traditional prom culture,” or as Brujas co-founder Arianna Gil described it, “the Met-Gala of the underground.”

Brujas Training Facility
  1. Rennsport Reunion 7
  2. Rennsport Reunion 7
  3. Rennsport Reunion 7
  4. Skateboard
  5. Skateboard
  6. Skateboard
  7. Skateboard
  8. Skateboard
  9. Skateboard
  10. Skateboard
  11. Skateboard
  12. Skateboard
  13. Skateboard
  14. Skateboard
  15. Skateboard
  16. Square Chair
  17. Kvadrat Flagship Showroom, NYC
  18. Kvadrat Flagship Showroom, NYC
  19. Kvadrat Flagship Showroom, NYC
  20. Kvadrat Flagship Showroom, NYC
  21. Kvadrat Flagship Showroom, NYC
  22. Blum & Poe Book store
  23. Blum & Poe Book store
  24. Blum & Poe book store
  25. Blum & Poe Book store
  26. Plywood and Cork Screens
  27. Plywood and Cork Screens
  28. Plywood and Cork Screens
  29. Hem San Francisco
  30. Hem Pop-Up San Francisco
  31. Hem Pop-Up San Francisco
  32. Camper Store
  33. Camper Store
  34. Camper Store
  35. Camper Store
  36. Camper Store
  37. Granite Benches
  38. Granite Benches
  39. Brujas Training Facility
  40. Brujas Training Facility
  41. Brujas Training Facility
  42. Solid Textile Screen
  43. Solid Textile Screen
  44. Solid Textile Screen
  45. Concrete Petanque Terrains and Aluminum Bench
  46. Realgar
  47. Twill Weave Daybed
  48. Room for a Daybed
  49. Selected Works
  50. Vitra Presents Work
  51. Sunset
  52. Longing
  53. Longing
  54. Longing
  55. Aluminum Bench / Sainsbury Gallery
  56. Aluminum Bench / Sainsbury Gallery
  57. Twill Weave Daybed
  58. Twill Weave Daybed
  59. Aluminum Bench, Volume Gallery
  60. Vitra Workspace
  61. Vitra Workspace: An Office Perspective
  62. Photo by David Van Severen
  63. Dog
  64. Olivares Aluminum Chair
  65. Aluminum Bench
  66. Aluminum Bench
  67. Source Material
  68. Source Material
  69. Delivery
  70. Aluminum Chair
  71. Aluminum Chair
  72. Aluminum Chair
  73. Olivares Aluminum Chair
  74. An Exploded View
  75. An Exploded View
  76. Library and social hub
  77. Library and social hub
  78. Joint
  79. A Small Museum for the American Metaphor
  80. Polyurethane Seating Platform
  81. Polyurethane Seating Platform
  82. Smith
  83. Smith
  84. Smith
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