This week's lecture was called 'Free on the streets' by Ed Gill where we explored the history of skateboarding and the culture behind it.
Gill explained how Skateboarding first came from surfboarding, instead of using the waves to ride, people wondered if they could so the same thing, but on land. The first skateboard ever made was created using a board and the wheels from roller-skates attached to make it move.
Skateboarding had never really been anything that was taken seriously at the time, this is very well presented in pop-culture. Especially in “back to the future” when ‘Marty travelled back to 1955, everyone is stunned to see him get away on a board what was handmade by a little girl walking past. it was only in the 1960s when it actually became a sport and then widely recognized.
There is a lot of culture behind skateboarding, it has gone through a mixture of different styles, from rock and punk, into hip hop in the 90s. Gill explained that skateboarding really blew up on the streets in the 90s as everyone had access to the streets. This is where that Hip-Hop influence came in, people stopped wearing the bright clothes of the 80s and started wearing baggy clothes.
More often than not these cultural changes were shown on the ‘thrasher’ magazines that were devoted to skateboarding. Gill expressed his love for the magazines by holding one up and saying it was so important with him that he would save that over anything else in a fire.
From listening to Gill’s talk, I realised just how brilliant this sub-culture is, I had never realised just how grand and exhilarating it can be. Dan Adams, a famous skateboarder once said, “Skateboarding was the only non-exclusive community I found”.
The artwork on the back of the boards sums it all up, from the vibrant colours to the eye catching designs, there is just so much to feast your eyes on, it is like the apiary of life in my eyes. The creativity you must have to skateboard, from the moved to the choice of environment, using swimming pools as their own parks, or making up tricks for different routes along an everyday rode.
I never knew just how instinctive you had to be, honestly, I was very impressed and now I have a new-found respect for the sport.
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