The path is place: skateboarding, graffiti and performances of place

ABSTRACT

This article reflects on two performances of place involving graffiti and skateboarding: the first looks at a graffiti intervention by SKL0, an urban artist in Singapore, and the second examines the Long Live Southbank (LLSB) campaign to resist the relocation of Southbank's Undercroft, an appropriated skate space in London. SKL0 and LLSB have galvanised significant public support, suggesting that it is possible to negotiate the aesthetics of a city (in the case of SKL0) and the visibility of (sub)cultures within publicly funded cultural institutions at Southbank Centre. Extending Michel de Certeau's concept of walking as a speech act that articulates possible paths of movement across a landscape, the article suggests that these performances of place demonstrate the possibility of outcomes initially perceived as impossible.

KEYWORDS:

• Graffiti
• skateboarding
• place
• Singapore
• Long Live Southbank

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Adelina Ong is a Ph.D. candidate at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (Central) looking at how parkour, skateboarding, ‘breaking’ (breakdancing) and graffiti create compassionate mobilities for young people. She has been active in Singapore's theatre scene from 1997, as a performer and co-organising interdisciplinary street × art festivals such as Pulp (2003). As an applied theatre practitioner, she managed an interdisciplinary, free arts school for low-income children and youths. She was awarded second prize for the TaPRA Postgraduate Essay Competition and currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA). She is also assistant convener of the Theatre Applied Centre for Research in Performance and Social Practice at Central.

Notes

1. Japanese animation.

2. A colloquial form of Singaporean English that incorporates Malay and Hokkien, a Chinese dialect. The conjunctions are often omitted for speed of communication.

3. The skate sessions organised by LLSB offered a mix of ‘free [skateboarding] lessons for the public’, competitions, demonstrations by BMX riders and skateboarders and open ‘skate for all’ sessions (Jones 2014; Long Live Southbank 2014a).