Barrier Kult, founded by Deer man of the black Woods, is a collective of skaters disgruntled with the path skateboarding is currently taking, specifically since the mid-90s. It was born in Vancouver in early 2003. Its main source of inspiration and veneration has been, specifically, two articles from industry magazines; one is “Aggro Zone” written by Neil Blender, and another written by Mark Gonzales and Garry S. Davis, “Street Sheet,” for the magazine Transworld Skateboarding. They decided to skate only “barriers,” starting off skating only one in Jersey City, although little by little they expanded their borders to other “barriers” in their neighboring country. Dressed in black balaclavas, fingerless leather gloves, and denim vests over two decades old, they challenge unimaginable tricks on these rough and steep transitions that the urban mother provides. Tricks like slappy, slash, tailblock, 50/50 stall, boneless one, and lap-over grind define their style and religion. They use boards with hardly any “nose” in order to clear such degrees of incline in just centimeters. They are sponsored by Skull Skates, Heroin, Emerica, and Gullwing (specifically the Super Pro III). Their entire aesthetic is from mid-80s skateboarding, mixed with imagery of cult worship of the malignant, using both their graphics and footage from classic films of pagan rituals. We must also add the soundtrack that accompanies them: black war metal. All these ingredients give rise to BARRIER KULT. They go beyond simple aesthetic differentiation; it is something more spiritual and philosophical, using the barrier as an authentic cult object and altar for their religion. The militancy and dissemination of their cult is their main premise. They claim they use black metal to keep their members' militancy pure; they see a true relationship between skateboarding culture and the cultures of occult worship and ritual. In the 80s, skating took on a punk attitude against every norm, rule, and system, whereas by the mid-nineties, that attitude was lost, and it became a mere sport with athletes performing extremely complex tricks lacking in creativity. This attitude leads them to reclaim lost values. Currently, there are 12 active and titled members. Some of them go by the following names: Crusade Templar Horse Skeleton in San Francisco, Moss-covered Witchmaker Candlemas in San Diego, and Beast of Gevaudan in Vancouver. All this madness we are telling you about is compiled in a book by Anthony Tafuro, which is unfortunately currently out of stock. Photography by Anthony Tafuro. [fvplayer src="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVOuYnzFk0c" width="688"] [fvplayer src="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j-E80fJjX4" width="688"] [fvplayer src="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM9IBS1Dw-w" width="688"]
