Vanessa Konte

Give us a little background on yourself.

My name is Vanessa Konte, I’m 24 years old - I grew up in a suburb of Munich called Unterhatching, it’s not that well known aside from the football team! And I’m currently living in Barcelona! When I’m not skating, I am studying Media Design.

Talk us through your journey in skateboarding.

I thought about this yesterday, I’m not actually sure how I got into skating. ​When I started there wasn’t really too much of a skate scene around… I guess skating was always there and always cool but I remember when I was 13, I had one of those Penny Boards and cruised around an old airfield by my house. I think I quickly graduated to a real board and decided to commit to the skate parks. Until I was 17 or 18, I didn’t really know about the scene, I just watched videos and took my inspiration from there. I feel I was somewhat isolated from the scene, I wasn’t really hyped to skate around people. I would usually go on my own early in the morning to the skatepark until people would show up.  My friends in Munich would always talk to me about pro skaters and I wouldn’t know who they were until I started watching the Baker videos…

At 18, the city centre became more accessible and I would go more often, there was an unsponsored category that I won, and got a local sponsor from that. It was from there I was filming more and getting more connected to the scene – it all really just went from there. I’ve been a Vans fan forever, a friend of mine knew this and knew someone that worked at Vans, and sent them an email – I was so embarrassed but they replied and sent me some shoes, so I was hyped… Last year I got officially on the Vans German team!

What precipitated the move to Barcelona?

I went on a skate trip there once after I finished school, with some friends. It was a defining moment for me, I fell in love with the place and the scene and instantly wanted to move there, however that was just before Covid hit and I had to postpone that idea for a minute. A year later or so I found a place for 3 months and really settled in two years ago come September. I guess I never really planned to move here, I just really liked it and stayed.

How do you find life there?

It’s amazing, the winter compared to the rest of Europe is so much better – especially Munich. Last winter I did a project with Solo – I started filming a project from the end of December and finished up in March which wouldn’t of happened in northern Europe where it’s cold, wet and grey. I really like the openness of the community here, I’ve met some really nice people. The whole lifestyle is incredible.

How does your average day look in Barcelona?

I’m really trying to focus on my uni, just trying to get it finished. I’ll try and wake up on the early side have a coffee and try and get it done. I’ll then see if anyone is skating a spot or if not I’ll head out and skate on my own. It’s good to stay productive.
 

There’s so many places I like to skate in Barcelona, I used to skate Sants a lot until they tore it down, but there’s a bunch of good DIY spots that I like to hit up.

How’s the female skate community in Barcelona?

It’s cool, let’s just say it’s a lot bigger than Munich where you always see the same faces. In Barcelona, you go to one of the DIY spots and there are suddenly five girls that skate really well that you haven’t seen before who are all local with a really nice vibe – it’s a big scene and the people are nice. The level of female skating is really high, it’s a great environment to be in.

What have you been working on recently?

I was really hyped when working on my Solo part, but during the filming I rolled my ankle so even though the part came out, which I was still really hyped on, I feel I never really finished it. When summer came around, after the events and trips I then had another injury, so now I really want to use the winter here to film for myself again. I still have a lot of stuff from last year that I still want to do that I couldn’t – we’ll see how the year goes – nothing concrete. I’m always open to new ideas.