THE LABORATORY OF PLEASURE
Galtasurfboards, Lausanne
It is 5.45p.m. I have an unusual appointment tonight. I just have an address, the meeting is in 15 minutes. I grab my skateboard and go down Lausanne'slopes. The air is unusually warm for early march, and a little snow is left on the mountains. The address is 97 rue de Genève. The place I am going to is one of Lausanne's biggest building. It is an old warehouse, a concrete cathedrale formely used by the Swiss Federal Railways. The neighboorhood had had a bad reputation during the past 30 years: prostitution and strong industial heritage made room for an underground culture and unexpected activities.
One last turn on the concrete and here I am at my destination. Number 97 is a small door. It goes easyly unoticed compared to the size of the whole construction. It is closed with a digital code. A guy in his 50ies comes out. Just when I wanted to go in, the guy stops me and looks at me suspiciously.
-Are you looking for something?
-Yes I am looking for the surfboard shapers!
-The what? (...) Ah! It is here but the door must be closed at all times. You are not allowed to enter. You will have to wait outside.
In front of the closed door, I watch him jump in his car and leave. He is still looking at me, like if I was a weirdo. I am not surprised by the mistrust of this guy. After all, this activity must be suspiscious in his eyes. Odd neighbourhood, young guys with protective masks, a weird chemical smell coming out of their workshop and all of it in this old warehouse. There are reasons to be suspisious I guess. And surfboards... Couldn't they have had a better alibi to cover up their activities? He must be thinking. I cannot blame him for his reaction. Surfing is off the grid in Switzerland. We are landlocked. There is no apparent reason to build surfboards.
I call my contact and one minute later here he is, opening the door. Arthur, long hair still a little bleached by the last time he went to the ocean. We go upstairs. In between two floors, Arthur stops and opens a door. It isn't really a door to be honest. It looks more like a cupboard door under the stairs than a real entrance.
Only a sticker on it says "Galta surfboards".
Inside, the ceiling is low, the sunlight filtred by a glass wall. At the back Tom and Mathieu are sitting on an old blue couch. A pink longboard is hanging over them. The light reveals its beautiful shape, its curves and lines. I am mind surfing. I just entered a small pocket of Ocean in the heart of Lausanne: the smell of the resin, the boards and the four of us who could be nothing else than surfers, all perfectly fitting the clichés.
Immediatly, we chat, all sharing our surf experiences. After a few minutes, like everytime when I speak with a Swiss surfer, I realize we were probably born in the wrong place, hundered of kilometers away from any wave. We are here, stuck in a permanent state of quarantine, sometimes for several months. A few times a year, the lake awakens and we can glide on it but it is as efficient as a painkiller against an uncurable desease. Thankfully, surfing isn't only about riding waves. There is a rich culture behind it and many ways to indirectly interact with it.
Tom, Mathieu and Arthur in their own way, try to keep a connexion to the Ocean. Maybe, it is the most beautiful way to do it: shaping boards. Sometimes they shape for the odd Swiss client, but most of the time they do it for themselves. They don't do it to own more boards or to make money. They shape for the simple pleasure of doing it, for the experiment, passion and pleasure being the leading words. They are true craftmen as Richard Sennett defines it: "Craftmanship names an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake." In the workshop, they draw their own line. They are self-taught men, learning everyday. Their hands are in a sensual relationship with the board. They sculpt speed, turns. They sculpt pleasure. Their brains picture the board gliding on the wave. Their hands design it. Shaping a board is earasing the border between brain and hands: mind surfing while sculpting. They do it with style and in the true DIY surf spirit.
