Neil Hartmann - Floating Above Changing Culture.
A Papersky Japan Story
Outdoors & Design 17
I have gone places in the mountains that 99 percent of people will never ever go to, viewpoints that are mind-expanding in situations that can change your life in an instant.
Blue skies, 7am, the roadside thermometer reading -19˚C on our way to Sapporo Kokusai Ski Resort. Neil and I reminisced about our younger snowboarding days, early snowboard design and winter seasons camping in cars.
Who knew that Neil’s low budget film series about a group of Japanese snowboarders sleeping in vans in the search for powder snow would have such an impact. The budget may have been low, but the energy was high. Neil and his friends were capturing and sharing something very real long before the popularity of smartphones and social media. The mainstream snowboard scene at the time didn’t understand it, but it would only be a matter of time before —literally— the whole world caught on.
However, changing media is changing culture, local economies and natural environments; not always in directions we expected. How do we come to terms with the mainstreaming popularity and sometimes over commercialisation of scenes we were once so excited to share?
I invite you to journey with me to Hokkaido to slide down mountains, sit in hot springs and not sleep in our cars with snowboarding Car Danchi filmmaker Neil Hartmann to talk about the future of localised creative communities.
Wish you were here…
James
Read Neil’s story “Floating above Changing Culture.” in Japanese or English at Papersky.jp.
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OUTDOORS & DESIGN Series
James Gibson, an outdoor enthusiast and designer - brings his two passions ‘OUTDOORS & DESIGN’ together to shed sunshine on Japanese: projects, art, creative endeavours and brands that are enlightening our natural world.
