Rite of passage, game of skill or street art: “shoefiti”, this funny tradition of skate culture firmly anchored in Bayonne

Looking up towards the tops of the lime trees, the visitor identifies, through the foliage, no less than fifty tandems abandoned to the moss. “At this time of year, we can’t tell them apart very well,” notes Andrea Dubourgeat, founder of The Bay association, who visits the place several times a week. But it’s in winter, when the trees are bare, that we understand that it’s a real phenomenon… How did these shoes end up perched up there? Who gets rid of their shoes like this and for what reasons?

Usés et rafistolés

Rémi Grangé, 51 years old and a career as a skate shop owner in the porn industry^e district of Paris, speaks of a “very widespread tradition in skate culture”. “We find this in most skateparks. As long as there are streetlights, electric cables or trees nearby,” says the man who has been traveling around quite a bit, with his skateboard under his arm. The phenomenon was born in the 2000s, in the United States. Since then, he has spread to Europe, notably Berlin, then Spain. Called “shoefiti” (a contraction of “shoes”, “shoes” in English, and graffiti) or “shoe tossing”, the practice is similar to a new form of urban art.

“It’s crazy,” continues Rémi Grangé. A way to add your touch to the park’s decor. » Andrea Dubourgeat knows, like many, the urban legend according to which these shoes hanging from electric wires in the little-frequented and dark alleys mark a drug sales point. “But that’s not at all the case here,” he defends. As proof, the one who defends the idea of ​​a culture of skiing accessible to all, in particular to children from the different districts of the city who flock to his lessons, guides the visitor towards “his” branch.