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