Vans Dusty Lines.

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Words_Jacopo Picozza.

Photography_Davide Biondani.

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The idea behind the Vans Dusty Lines project was to travel around the country in search of abandoned places to explore and skate. With just a rough plan and no clear idea about what to expect, the Italian Vans team ventured into this new journey that brought them to six different magical places.

A ghost town, a mental hospital, a cement factory, an Olympic park, a manufactory, and a post office…

All of them abandoned, most of them destroyed and absolutely desolate. The boys had to use all their imagination to spot something skateable, they worked for hours to remove stuff, clean the run ups, build kickers, and gave blood, sweat, and tears to bring home their tricks.

A sense of distress, non-existing flatground, bearings stuck with dust, the risk of falling into the void as almost happened at the Cement Factory, being crushed by a collapsing wall… and an always dirty griptape… made this trip unforgettable.

Welcome to the Vans Dusty Lines.

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EDITOR and CONCEPT_ Davide Biondani. (davide@abriefglance.com) ASSOCIATE EDITOR_ Guido Bendotti. (guido@abriefglance.com) ASSISTANT EDITOR_ Andrew Zolin.

TRANSLATIONS_ Jonathan Levin.

DESIGN_ Fake Donkey Lab. ARTWORK_ Massimo Bod Ciceri.

GET ALL THE INFOS at: info@abriefglance.com

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CEMENT FACTORY

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A huge abandoned industrial building was where we spent most of our days. The building was gigantic, and in order to explore the whole place we divided into groups. The air inside was moldy and humid, as if we were inside a huge abandoned wine cellar.The first spot we found was a rough, steep bank, with an inexistent run up and a landing that led into a very dark, narrow, and slimy tunnel. The amount of dust and dirt was such that huge clouds lifted up in the air, taking your breath away and getting in your eyes.

Without a doubt the most nonsensical thing was the run up... one meter of compacted sand full of holes and pieces of cement. Despite everything, we all skated this bank as if it was a dream spot.

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JACOPO PICOZZA // TRE FLIP

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We all did a trick, but the most absurd thing was Icaro who built a kind of wooden bridge on which he could get enough speed to ollie over the stairs and land in the narrow bank below... that obviously led into the tunnel of death.

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ICARO NARDI // OLLIE

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While exploring the place we found ourselves inside cold, damp rooms, feeling overwhelmed by their monumental size. I remember that during the exploration of the building we got lost continuously.

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ADALBERTO RINALDI // FS POP

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The true gem was on the roof, where we first noticed some wavy architecture with drops, long slopes, and trannies against the walls. It felt like we had found a decadent and abandoned paradise.

CARLO CASSAN // FS PIVOT BS OUT

The danger of the floor caving in and all of us falling down for tens of meters was a thought I wasn’t able to avoid for the whole session. But the fact of being out in the open instead of down underground filling our lungs with dust was definitely a plus.

SIMONE VERONA // FS WALLRIDE

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With a few creative adaptations we were able to bring home a totally satisfying session even though the flatground was practically unskateable and our boards had lost their pop.

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SIMONE VERONA // BONELESS IN

ICARO NARDI // KICKFLIP

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JACOPO PICOZZA // BS KICKFLIP INTO THE BANK

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Carlo Cassan constantly made us laugh with his funny habit of drinking a bottle of red wine at every lunch break accompanied by a salami sandwich.

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During this stop of the tour we were determined to land as many tricks as possible because the location was really magical.

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The craziest trick was done by Simone Verona who dropped from a roof all the way to the floor below via a bs wallride, taking advantage of a small, broken cement kicker, obviously with no run up... totally senseless. We left the cement factory full of smiles, dusty memories, and with a pile of tricks under our belts.

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SIMONE VERONA // WALLRIDE MELON

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MENTAL HOSPITAL

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We found ourselves on the set of a horror film.

A decadent structure featuring beds with straitjackets, toxic waste, chains dangling from the walls, torn clothing, collapsed ceilings, and lots of dust everywhere. We felt the uneasiness and distress of our surroundings very strongly from the first moment we set foot there. Personally, I found everything that surrounded us very fascinating and novel. I had never seen an abandoned mental institution before, let alone having the chance to skate one.The fact that many years earlier this place was full of people with mental disorders, and finding signs of their presence certainly made this place fascinating and gloomy at the same time. The mental institution was probably the most difficult place to find something to skate, there really wasn’t much: only these long, narrow corridors full of rubble, bricks, and trash. After sweeping the ground we realized that it was rather smooth, and maybe for the first and last time we were able to warm up our muscles with some flatground tricks.

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ADALBERTO RINALDI // FS CROOKS.

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The only source of illumination came from these huge windows, and it was this light shining through that gave the spot its magic. By using some wooden doors we found inside a dark room, we built a bank under a window, allowing us to skate the windowsill and the wall on the side.

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“ We were constantly covered in dust from head to toe, our bearings were stuck, and at almost every try we had to clean the griptape. The dirty griptape was a constant during this tour.�

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We had to work for over two hours in the most extreme dust to remove all the disgusting things we found there. Icaro and Simone both fell into that pile of shit before landing their wallrides. Icaro surely got some infectious disease.

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ICARO NARDI // WALLRIDE

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SIMONE VERONA // FS WALLRIDE

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One of the heavy beds abandoned in one of the huge rooms became a perfect ledge to grind. We were constantly covered in dust from head to toe, our bearings were stuck, and at almost every try we had to clean the griptape. The dirty griptape was a constant during this tour. Our session inside the mental institution continued until the sun went down and the light didn’t illuminate our spot anymore, and our only option was to leave for the next destination... the feeling of uneasiness and distress reached its peak right in that moment... and diving back into the city traffic was, incredibly, a return to life.

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ICARO NARDI // FS SMITH

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JACOPO PICOZZA // BS SMITH

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GHOST TOWN

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The first impression we had when we got to this little town lost in the woods, was of complete desolation.

Merry-go-rounds and public attractions left abandoned. Everything was destroyed... and there was not a spot in sight. A pretty bad start to the tour. Consonno is on the Como Lake, to the north of Milan. It was built between the 60’s and 70’s over an ancient town with the intention of giving life to a Las Vegas type place... a project that failed miserably towards the beginning of the 80’s. The ghost town immediately suggested that this tour would be more difficult than we had imagined. Our positive and well-intentioned expectations immediately clashed with the naked truth.

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The prevailing impression was that we were completely isolated from any social contact, while the most problematic thing was making the few spots we found skateable. With no means and very little time we were forced to combine all that we found laying around with our imagination in order to build kickers, rails, and obstacles to ollie.

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To imagine, build, and skate anything that went through our minds... this was the mood of our mission.

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SIMONE VERONA // HURRICANE

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The first thing we skated was the railing on the roof of the main structure which had a pavement that was rough and impracticable and completely covered by a rubber coating.

We divided into groups and everyone worked hard to make part of the area skateable.

Armed with quick-setting cement, Simone Verona made possible a session on top of a turret-like structure composed of rough and super steep mini-banks. The risk of falling down below was extremely elevated, and that would’ve meant certain death.

SIMONE VERONA // FS BLUNT

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ICARO NARDI // BS TAILSLIDE

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JACOPO PICOZZA // FS NOSEGRIND

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ICARO NARDI // 50 50 TO BS LIP

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Both the adrenaline and the desire to land tricks often helped us overcome our fears and the imperfections of the flatground. Unfortunately, on the first day we lost Nicolò who twisted his ankle really badly while skating a crumbling ledge. The most ingenious spot was probably the rusty iron rainbow, built by Carlo Cassan with a tube he found in the bushes and anchored to the ground with quick-setting cement.

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JACOPO PICOZZA // NOSEBLUNT SLIDE

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NIKOLO’ BROMO // BS SMITH GRIND

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Icaro, the new team rider, immediately conquered everybody with his smile and his fresh, intense desire to skate. He was the most positive and smiling personality of the tour, always ready to clean and skate any spot he encountered. Creativity, adaptability, and lots of desire to skate anything, these are the ingredients that gave us good memories accompanied by strange feelings of abandonment.

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OLYMPIC PARK

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The 2006 Winter Olympics Park is located on the border between Italy and France.

We knew that the bobsled racecourse has been in disuse since 2010, but we didn’t have the absolute certainty that it was really abandoned, or at least unattended.

Once in the valley, the weather conditions went from sunny to rainy, to a full blown snow storm, after which the sun magically came out... it was basically snowing with the sun...

ICARO NARDI // BS KICKFLIP

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SIMONE VERONA // FS POWERSLIDE

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Once we got to the place, we discovered that the racecourse was inside the ski facility which is still in operation; at least that’s what it looked like, but it was absolutely deserted, so we decided to sneak in, being careful not to be seen.

The bobsled racecourse is a cement snake descending down the mountain, and the first impact was shocking... it looks like a cement paradise, but in reality it’s so steep and the tranny only on one side is so tight that it isn’t skateable except in a few places. The sign bearing the peeling Olympic logo and the faded banners were evident proof of abandonment, and witnessing all that unused cement provoked in us a great sense of sadness.

The transition was really difficult to skate, but our master tranny guys Icaro and Simone know a thing or two, and before being kicked out by a security guard, they had already landed a couple hammers.

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THE FACTORY

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Turin has always been the most industrialized Italian city, and up to the 70s-80s was one of the automobile capitals of the world.

Nowadays its territory is rich in huge abandoned factories, a real museum of industrial archeology. The perfect circumstance for our mission. Actually, our first stop was at an abandoned gym where we managed to get in by climbing up and through a window... inside it was full of mirrors and partially destroyed equipment... the smell of garbage and shit was nauseating, and after a couple minutes we realized it was inhabited by people sleeping in the dark rooms, from which a girl with a wild-eyed look appeared, suggesting we leave. Considering the unbreathable air, we decided to leave that disgusting place.

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While exploring the area, we sneaked into a gigantic factory nearly in ruins along the railway. Inside we discovered a structure with an arched ceiling with huge fissures through which the sunlight created interesting light effects. Even more interesting were the two flat gaps in a row that stimulated both Icaro’s and Mattia’s imaginations, who after moving a pile of wood and sweeping the ground, rewarded us with some tricks.The crazy thing was an alarm system that rang constantly when we passed by certain points, but fortunately nobody came to check.

SIMONE VERONA // OLLIE UP TO WALLRIDE

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MATTIA TURCO // OLLIE IN TO BONELESS OUT

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ICARO NARDI // OLLIE IN TO BS KICKFLIP

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POST OFFICE

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The last part of our mission brought us to explore a huge building that once housed a post office. All the entrances on the ground floor were walled up and the only access was the fire escape which could only be reached through a ladder tied with an electric cable and hanging in the air. Not really the safest thing in the world. With a cavedin ceiling and all the windows broken, this three-storey building was basically empty... with the exception of the rubble piled up here and there that conveyed a sense of absolute desolation. While exploring some rooms, a big wall collapsed in front of us with a dull thud, shaking the whole building and causing a deadly silence to descend over the whole crew. If any of us had been just one step further, he would have definitely been crushed. On several occasions during this trip we found ourselves in dangerous circumstances, but this was the first time we really understood how many risks we were taking.

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MATTIA TURCO // FS CROOKS

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ICARO NARDI // BACKWARD NOSEGRIND

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A stack of wooden boards was the spot of the day, and of course the flat was completely covered in dust rising in the air at every ollie, filling your lungs, bearings, and rendering the griptape absolutely useless; not to mention the broken glass everywere. But after a week spent skating the dirtiest places you could ever imagine, we were more than used to these kinds of situations. After a bit of cleaning and after fixing the panels, everyone started skating, and after a few minutes, tricks started getting blasted out. Being the last day the boys were visibly tried and the end of the sesh was welcomed as a liberation.

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The Vans Dusty Lines has been a really fascinating and very challenging project. Without much planning the whole thing has been based on reasearch, exploration and improvisation to skate the most dirty and dusty places in the most desolate location imaginable.

The guys have been great, skating in impossible conditions, risking a lot and working hard every day to make the few spots found usable. Everyone was super motivated and into the right spirit. Thanks to all the skaters and people involved in this amzing project. It has been great!

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