What happens when the Natural History Museum hands over its keys to Red Bull? Kick-flips over a velociraptor skeleton and free styling over a tank containing a crocodile. For one week, and one week only, Red Bull turned the iconic museum into a slayer skatepark.

Red Bull’s legendary skate team skated amongst many of the museum’s 80 million artefacts, including the exceptionally talented Leticia Bufoni. This once in a lifetime skate session in a truly unique setting was captured in partnership with Canon.

The skate athlete Leticia Bufoni said: “It was a historic moment for the skate scene. We are used to being kicked out of museums or their grounds, but on this occasion the Natural History Museum allowed us to come inside and create a park around their stuff. They had obviously never had ramps in there so it was cool to create them all and skate this once-in-a-lifetime experience. I was pretty nervous skating around their artifacts. We were taking big risks to avoid damaging them. It was certainly one of the craziest nights of my life.”

Between the usually forbidden hours of the museum, areas were turned into breathtaking locations for the athletes to skate in the Natural History Museum. The skaters took on benches in Minerals Hall, sessioned the rails at the entrance to the museum and freestyled across a tank containing a crocodile, before finally creating a mega ramp down the main stairs of Hintze Hall to kickflip over a velociraptor skeleton.

You can view Red Bull Skate the Museum on Monday 19th June, via the Red Bull Skateboarding YouTube HERE and Red Bull TV HERE.

We sat down with Leticia Bufoni, to chat through this unforgettable experience, her close relationship with Red Bull and female skate scene in the UK…

When did your skating career start?
I started skating when I was nine years old. I used to be the only girl that played soccer and one day my friend stopped playing because they got a skateboard for Christmas so I had a go and picked it up from there. From the first time I touched the skateboard, I just fell in love with it. I was learning tricks even faster than the boys and I just couldn’t stop!

It was really hard at times because I was the only girl. Initially, my Dad didn’t like that I was skating, he even cut my board in half! But he soon realised nothing could stop my love for skating so he supported me and took me to my first ever skate competition, aged 11.

How did you come up with the idea for your skate film?
I got a call from Red Bull telling me about the project and when they first told me it would be at The Natural History Museum, I just thought it was a crazy idea. But this is what they do and I’m all for the crazy stuff! I couldn’t believe we were going to be able to skate inside the Museum – everything is just so valuable! I was amazed by everything that was around us and when we started putting the project together I just knew it was going to be one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my life. I wanted to do my best and make the most awesome content possible in the iconic location.

What is so special about shooting in the Natural History Museum?
We were the first ones to ever skate there and I don’t think anybody else will be able to do it again. How cool is that?

Tell us a bit about the other Red Bull skate athletes included?
When I started talking to Red Bull about the project, I wanted to have people around me that I get along with and that would enjoy it as well. I really wanted Margie Didal to be there even though she was unable to skate, it was important to me that she was still involved – at least to hang out! She grabbed the camera and started filming content for the final film, so it felt like she was really part of the project. At times we were filming at crazy hours so she really brought the vibe and energy to the set.

I’ve been following Lore Bruggeman for years across various competitions but never got to skate and hang out with her, so it was cool to get to know her better – she’s an amazing skater and super funny!

I met Aldana Bertran not long ago. We were in South Africa together at the beginning of this year for a project which meant we got to hang out for 12 days and go street skating. She was super shy and quiet at first but when she gets more comfortable, she’s hilarious and so good at skating. As a street skater, she can do crazy tricks.

What was the filming process like?
The first day was crazy because there were a lot of people around and I hadn’t realised how big the project was until I got there and saw the whole production team. But we managed to create something that made it feel like it was just me and my friends skating in the Museum together.

Everyone was so cool. We had skate filmers and photographers who knew how to capture the best shots for skateboarding, it was just perfect. Our priority was to skate, have fun and get the tricks so we didn’t focus on all of the crew and cameras around us.

Do you have a favourite memory from filming or moment from the video?
My favourite trick was the kickflip over the dinosaur. It’s something that we planned for months and I was unsure if I was going to be able to do it because we didn’t know how the ramp was going to work or how big the dinosaur was going to be. I was so excited to do the jump as I don’t think I’ll ever get the chance to do anything like this again. It took me a little while to learn the kickflip in this environment and I felt really sore the next day, but it was totally worth it.

“What do you think of the female skate scene in the UK?”
For the last night of the project, we got to hang out with local female skate collectives and it was so cool. I have been coming to London for a really long time and I’ve never met that many girls skating. It was great to meet them and see how hyped they were to get involved with us. The skate scene in the UK is definitely growing and I hope with this project, we can get even more girls into skating.

How have you seen the skate industry change overtime and where do you hope it go in the future?
Skateboarding has changed a lot since I started and it’s amazing to see how many girls are skating and the amount of events we have available nowadays. I never thought that skateboarding would be in the Olympics or that I could even tell people that I am a skater for a living. Back when I started, people weren’t as open to it and now I’m so stoked that people think it’s cool. It’s getting bigger and bigger and I just can’t wait to see how it progresses even further in the future. The level of women skateboarding right now is incredible.

Just being part of the women’s scene in skateboarding and using my platform with Red Bull to help change the scene a little bit is such a blessing.

Would you like to continue creating films like this moving forward?
I think my goal for the next few years is to definitely continue to do cool stuff like this project with Red Bull. What else can I do next? Right now, it’s going to be hard to come up with ideas to beat this. But I want to keep inspiring people, think outside of the box and go do different things.

There’s so much more to skateboarding than just competitions, I’ve been competing for 20 years so now I can explore the other side of it too, whether that’s something like street skating, I’m just excited to keep working on fun projects that capture the essence of skateboarding.