<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>Ash says that “empowering and showing that we exist is the first step to being seen as equal”.&nbsp; She wanted to encourage and support fellow womxn in the industry but she struggled to find any womxn making their own skateboards. In response, she set out to reclaim skateboards for womxn by producing the decks herself. Her workshops are intended to get womxn involved with creating their own graphics on skateboards; putting their own messages into the world. This is a form of personal protest and an effort to outnumber the bad graphics that exist.&nbsp;</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>

<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>Ash’s projects were kind of different from the rest of the 2020 ROLL Models. Despite some of them using art and creative activities in their programmes, Ash highlighted the creative aspect as the main topic.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>

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<p><span><span><span><span><em><span>“It was really cool to be part of the [ROLL Models] project. My project was to make five women build up a skateboard. It was about teaching womxn how to build a skateboard and also how to ride it as well.” </span></em></span></span></span></span></p>
</blockquote>

<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>She was planning to do an in-person workshop in the factory that she usually works in but finally, due to Covid-19 restrictions, she had to adapt the methodology into the new circumstances. She first organized three online workshops to initiate the project with five womxn and each one created their own skateboard.&nbsp; She tracked the progress of the designs and took photos at the end with each of their designs on their boards. The final step of her ROLL Models project was to create a short documentary about her passion for making skateboard decks and to show the whole process in order to empower other womxn skaters who want to learn. She filmed it in </span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="https://bigayeskateboards.co.uk/"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Big-Aye</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span><span><span><span><span><span>’s workshop, showing each step of the building process of a skate deck and finally she made an amazing must-see </span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHXcant9214"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>video-tutorial</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span><span><span><span><span><span>.&nbsp;</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
