City 01 Skate Days, 2019. Plaza Seneca. Alicante. Spain. No walkers

Skateboarding, like other forms of urban expression such as graffiti, is both criminalized and commodified by the public. The subversive activity that creates public backlash also generates public interest and support that often translates into city-sponsored skate parks reserved for the activity. These constructions ironically undermine the subversive component of the activity, which ironically again, diminishes public support, and so on. The existence of skate parks is, itself, a symptom of skateboarding’s paradoxical nature. We formalized this paradox as «Mutually Exclusive Goals in Skateboarding»: 1) Either skateboarding activity is a sport or (exclusive) a subversive subcultural lifestyle. 2) If a sport, the goal of skateboarding activity is to achieve rule-bound competitive success. 3) If subversion, the goal of skateboarding activity is to disrupt rule-bound competitive success. 4) In practice, skateboarding activity is both achievement and disruption of rule-bound competitive success. 5) Activities that enjoy mutually exclusive goals are paradoxical. 6) Thus, in practice, skateboarding activity is paradoxical.

«Mutually Exclusive Goals in Skateboarding» articulates the paradox of skateboarding, subverting the very notion of rule-bound competitions as it participates in them, adding to the mystery of skateboarding, which includes many other paradoxes as it is an activity both conformist and transgressive, with influences both local and global, with movement that is both static and rapid, and meaning that is both domestic and urban, with both planned and spontaneous behavior.

Quote. Brian Glenney & Steve Mull. «Skateboarding and the Ecology of Urban Space», J Sport Soc Issues, 2018 December.

City 00Skate days (CSKD) is a project of great scope on the world of skateboarding, raised from a vision that tries to go beyond its sporting side. I focus attention on aspects that reflect a subcultural model, very diverse moments and contexts, attitudes and signs that tell us about that experience: fashion, graffiti, gestures, local environments, lifestyles, group interaction, youth and contemporary identities. But it also opens up to other perspectives: the visibility and roles of women in the world of skateboarding, the relationship between skate and social integration based on community actions, the practice of skate in developing countries, the reinterpretation of urban culture from the expressiveness of very different local identities.

City 00Skate days (CSKD) es un proyecto fotográfico sobre el mundo del skate, planteado desde una visión que intenta ir más allá de su vertiente deportiva. Centro la atención en aspectos que reflejan un modelo subcultural, momentos y contextos muy diversos, actitudes y signos que nos hablan de esa vivencia: moda, graffiti, gestos, entornos locales, estilos de vida, interacción grupal, identidades juveniles. Pero también se abre a otras perspectivas: la visibilidad y roles de la mujer en el mundo del skate, la relación entre el skate y la integración social a partir de acciones comunitarias, la práctica del skate en países en vías de desarrollo, la reinterpretación de la cultura urbana desde la expresividad de muy diversas identidades locales.