An all-female group of skateboarding athletes have taken to the Natural History Museum in a first-ever skating experience to show the sport “is for everyone, not just for guys”.
For one week only, Red Bull was handed the keys to the Natural History Museum, where it transformed the usually forbidden areas of the London attraction into a skatepark to create a once-in-a-lifetime skate film.
Between 10pm and 5am, a trio of Red Bull skate athletes – including six-time X Games gold medallist, Leticia Bufoni, rising star Lore Bruggeman, and Argentina’s Aldana Bertran – became the first people to skate amongst many of the museum’s 80 million artefacts.
Red Bull skate athlete Ms Bufoni, 30, a professional skateboarder from Brazil based in California, said her goal is to try and get more people into skateboarding, especially more girls.
“You know it’s amazing to be able to have some women together in skating, and showing that skateboarding is for everyone and not just for guys,” she told the PA news agency.
“And my goal is to always to try and get more people into skateboarding and especially more girls, so being here and doing this with only girls, I’m sure when they watch the video they’re gonna be hyped to start skating, or if they’re already skating they’re gonna be hyped to learn more tricks and that’s always been my goal to inspire more people into skating.”
The trio of skateboarders took on the benches in Minerals Hall, sessioned the rails at the entrance to the museum, and freestyled across a tank containing a crocodile, before finally creating a mega ramp down the main stairs of Hintze Hall to kickflip over a velociraptor skeleton.
They were also joined by skate legend Margie Didal and together, they scoped out the whole museum to skate spots that no-one will ever skate again.
Ms Bufoni, who said the whole experience was “amazing”, added that her favourite trick of the night was doing a kickflip over a velociraptor skeleton.
“I feel like everything I skated inside the museum was amazing, and I had a lot of fun, but over the dinosaur was definitely my favourite, because I don’t know if I’m ever gonna jump over a dinosaur again so that was really cool, and I just did a kick flip over it, which flips the board and it was really high and far so I think it was definitely my favourite trick of the night.”
Ms Bufoni said they tried to “enjoy the moment” because “it’s never been done before”, adding: “I don’t think anyone will ever be able to do it again, so we’re just taking advantage of it and skating as much as we can.”
She added: “You know I’ve been doing a lot of different stuff in my life, I’ve been to a lot of different projects with Red Bull and a lot of it was my idea, but this one is just different you know, it’s something that it’s just really hard to happen, it’s hard to get the licence to do it and it’s a really expensive place and I don’t think anyone will be able to do it again.”
Ms Bufoni, who completed her first X Games in Los Angeles at the age of 14, said the Natural History Museum and an aeroplane are among some of the “craziest places” she has skated.
“I would say the museum and inside the airplane, which we just did a project was the craziest places I ever skated in,” she said.
“For us skaters, we go to shopping malls and we go to places that we really wish we could skate but we can’t, and just being able to skate inside a museum it’s something that I never thought I would do it one day, and it’s crazy that it’s happening.”
A film of the Red Bull skateboarding project at the Natural History Museum, captured in partnership with Canon, will be available to watch at 1pm on Monday on Red Bull’s Skateboarding YouTube page at: youtube.com/@RedBullSkateboarding
