The ludic lives of memoryscapes: Skateboarding post-Soviet peripheries

Abstract

Post-Soviet cities vary dramatically yet share common elements desired by skateboarders and filmers as ‘spots’; assemblages of objects, obstacles and surfaces offering the chance to perform difficult skateboard tricks in public space. Memoryscapes are desired as spots for their scale, smooth surfaces, in-built obstacles and aesthetic appeal on video. As more skateboarders travel to post-Soviet cities in Central Asia and the Caucuses, their reinterpretation of memoryscapes reveal the ludic lives of memoryscapes, the interplay between memory and place, and the tension between hegemonic memory practices of state and state-like agents and the seemingly apolitical reinterpretation by skaters. This article explores two contrasting post-Soviet memoryscapes as seen on skate video, Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) and Sukhumi (Abkhazia) to make three arguments. First, while battles are fought over public memory online and offline, skaters approach the landscape as ludic space; as playgrounds for unsanctioned performance, capture and circulation. Second, these memoryscapes are enrolled in global circulations of skate culture, giving memoryscapes an adjacent existence online detached from their intended meanings and counter-meanings. Third, in some cases the friction between ludic approaches and the power of memory unravels the singular focus on spots, even for skaters with limited knowledge of the context.

Skateboarding: From Urban Spaces to Subcultural Olympians

“…Contemporary research on skateboarding and young people is interdisciplinary and reaches across the global, for example see Geertman et al’s (2016, p. 591) account of skateboarding and spatial appropriation in Hanoi, Vietnam. Thus, an ever-expanding body of work focused on city planning and spatial issues, gender and sexuality, religion, rural and urban life have surged in the last decade (e.g., D’Orazio, 2020; Holsgens et al, 2019; McDuie-Ra, 2021; Nash & Moore, 2020; O’Connor, 2018). The classic literature in the field comprises of a few earlier works.…”