This all started in 2017… Peye lives nearby and walked his dog there and Urtzi rehearsed with his punk band close by. They had seen a place under the highway, quite large, but full of rubble and garbage, it was a fucking dump.
It rains a lot around here, and despite having public skateparks in the area, they are always full of scooters and there was no indoor park, so we got down to work and started cleaning everything to build a miniramp.
We had already met skaters from this area, but of different ages and different neighborhoods and towns, people like Patata and Chetos, who already had a lot of experience in building and people of all ages, fathers, mothers, and children.
At first we had quite a few problems with the people in the area, they didn’t know very well what we were doing there and we had several complaints and a couple of fire attempts, after all that, we put everything aside for a year or so, but it couldn’t stay that way. I remember that Imanol pushed it a lot and started motivating people to resume construction and things went forward.
The shaping was done and we started having parties and merchandising to get money for construction material. All the parties were brutal and more and more people, shops and skate brands helped us.
It continued to be built, but after the last party, the pandemic came and parties could no longer be held.
A year later, my brother Juanjo came up with the idea to make a Gofundme and the donations began to rise in no time! We were pleasantly surprised and that motivated us a lot to get to where we are today.
We greatly appreciate all the donations and all the visits from people from everywhere, but now we have reached the point where we have the necessary material and resources, but we need more people on work days!
Every transition, floor, etc., that is made requires people to be there all the time.
If not, it won’t be as good as it has been. If you’ve been here, you know what I’m saying, it’s nice to fall here!
Words by Javier Ben Hamed (Txitxarra)
Photography by Pablo Ribera, Greg Poissonier, Javier Saavedra, Pierre-Antoine Lalaude & the Ramputene crew.
Follow the ongoing Ramputene project at @ramputene_diy