City 01 Skate Days, 2017. Skatepark Monte Tossal (Castillo San Fernando). Alicante. Spain. Skate perception, visual style & graffiti

For many skaters themselves, skateboarding is much more than merely a leisure pastime. It can justifiably be seen as a form of youth culture, in the sense that it has its own preferred modes of symbolic representation, its own aesthetic, its own ethical codes and rules and its own ideology. To be a skateboarder is to be more than just a person who happens to roll about the city streets on a piece of wood. Being an accomplished skater, and knowing where and how to skate, is obviously part of the story; as is wearing particular clothes and accessories, having a particular hairstyle, listening to particular kinds of music, and choosing particular products or brands.

But the skilful use of these external markers also helps to define you as a member of a group that is presumed to share particular values, values that are to some degree defined in opposition to, or at least as an alternative to, those of mainstream adult society. Becoming a skater entails a process of self-identification: it is about the assertion of an attitude, and the claiming of an identity, that is literally embodied in particular forms of visual appearance and physical style.

Quote. David Buckingham. «Skate perception: self-representation, identity and visual style in a youth subculture», 2009

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.