Wasteland hanging in

Newcastle's Wasteland (Classic long summer days spot) has seen major levelling and earth moving over last few days with skaters getting chucked out during the day. Does not look like it will be much longer before plaza gets hit.... but as dusk fell, hottest day of the year so far 20+ skaters and BMXers reclaimed this magical space

"So I threw my board into the pond......

...then i threw it in again to see which way the current was flowing". Only one of the brilliant tales of Tyneside skating from Sean, Long Board Man, Bryan and Liam (i hope i got those names right) along with the dangers of sugar, 14 cups of coffee, the nicest security guard you could ever meet, why skating and football mix, what became of Bryan's front teeth (it's okay... they were only first teeth), why skaters and free-runners are good mates and getting your board nicked. A nicer bunch of skaters you'd be hard pressed to find and i'm only sorry my recorder ran out of batteries because we could have gone on for hours. Did I mention the guitar playing scorpion? Or advice on when not to fight a dwarf?

Getting your photos, video and more into the Exhibition

We will print out and display your photographs. This will be done to professional standards, so your work will look mint.

Please email photographs as .jpgs or .pdf, along with a brief description of content, e.g. names of people.
We can handle .tiff, .psd and other formats but this is harder; don’t let this put you off though, so get in touch if you are not sure.

For video either email or send on a DVD, CD or datastick with info about format so we can download for video displays and projection during the exhibition.

The maximum size of files that we can handle via email is 18MB.

If you have photos or video on the web (Facebook, blogs, Flickr or anywhere else) please let us know. There may be brilliant images on your sites which would help get the PlayToon message across and we will check through work and ask for copies .

Material should be emailed to michael.jeffries@northumbria.ac.uk

Address: Mike Jeffries, Department of Geography, Ellison Building, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST

Deadline 15th April 2012.

All work shown will be credited and remains your copyright.

This not a commercial or corporate event; all those involved are doing it because we take part in or support the street sport scenes around Tyneside and want to show off and promote these scenes; Urban Games, 4-Sight, Native, NEPK, Digital Deekies.

The work will be used for the PlayToon exhibition, which will feature in Newcastle’s Late Show programme, and some be incorporated in an exhibition in London later in 2012 as part of the London Festival of Architecture, which is all about the playful city

What kinds of images?
Portraits & people: You and your mates, either single portraits or groups so we can represent the sheer numbers and mix of people from the street sport scenes.
Photos of people hanging out together as well as doing tricks and stunts.

Roots, culture & history of the local scenes: Photos of you and your mates telling your story, days out, epic spots, lost spots, legends from the Tyneside scene, big events, classic sessions, jams and parties, training.

Have you got an old photo of you and your first skateboard or BMX? Any photos from back in the day and spots no longer so easy to use, e.g. Haymarket? The discovery and building of spots. Favourite food, clothes, boards, bikes
Even injuries you are proud of....

Top spots: Where are Tyneside’s skate, BMX and free running scenes?
How your use, re-invent, change and play with the city are important.

"Our space has strange effects.....

....for one thing it unleashes desire" (Lefebvre, 1974). In this case the desire to skate Grey's Monument in the centre of Newcastle. For however briefly the monument is a skate spot, and, for that time, the most constructive use of this urban space. In 2002 Philadelphia's City council tried to deter skaters from the long-treasured Love Park spot in their city centre, only to face a wave of protest and realise that the skaters were " the shock troops of gentrification" , as a writer called Ocean Howell put it. The skaters "breathed life" into that city plaza. £160 million has been spent restoring Newcastle's Grainger Town; gentrification of buildings yes, but maybe the fleeting presence of skaters at the Monument hints at other possibilities, not just bricks and mortar. Earl Grey might look down approvinlgy

"They're so small they are evading our turbo lasers"

Bridges this morning had acquired a crop of strange white globes and a mysteriously flickering thing on a tripod. The thing was a lazer scanner which rotates, firing lazer beams at the surroundings which then bounce back, are detected and used to create a 3D computer model of the architecture. We'll see if this can be used to make a fly-through version of Bridges. But what if you get hit by the lazers? We'll never know; the skaters out early at Bridges were simply too quick to hit, dodging the beams.

Call the cops

They're already here. Ever wondered why Gateshead Council should spend £11,000 turning 5 Bridges into a decent skate spot? The story varies a bit, like all good urban tales should. Some versions: (1) The Council used money from a housing dveleopment mitigation scheme to improve a spot they already knew skaters used and, when they were there, reduced anti-social hassle from other people (okay, and so skaters wouldn't keep lifting up the flagstones), (2) visiting pro skaters were contacted by the Council, again because the Council had realised that skaters made the space safer for other people or (3) a Gateshead councillor was visited by a little old lady at a surgery who started to tell him about the skaters. Bracing himself to hear that they were a nuisance which the Council should deal with the councillor was suprised to hear that the little old lady liked the skaters being at Bridges because when they were the place felt safe. Pick which ever version you like, the messgae is the same. Skaters are good for the cityscape.

"when they work, we'll skate"

"Skaters create their own fun on the periphery of mass culture". Lowboy. And whilst a good read might not be such immediate fun as a sick ollie it can be useful ammo, representing street sports beyond what passers by see. Academic articles may not be the slickest read but they have their uses. Plus, if it is a cold day, better to stay inside Native and check out "The accidental youth club: skateboarding in NewcastleGatesehad" which comes out in the Journal of Urban Design later this year and hopefully does the job of breaking past the stereotypes of skaters=damage and nuisance. Will have more copies to hand round at local spots (PlayToon project will be around at 5 Bridges on 12th for Bingo's bash). Mike

skating and mushy peas

"Like, when I went to school none of my friends skated and all i ever used to talk about was skating and then that got one of my friends into skating and we used to skate together and then just pretty much me being so into skating got, like, my best friends from school, it got them into skating which was the best situation ever" (Max). Collecting more tales of first skate boards and skating in Tyneside in Native today. Bitter cold today, so even Bridges did not sound a good bet. Who needs to skate when you can head to Grainger Market and have chips and mushy peas? Skating is not just about skating.

PlayToon in Native Skates, Saturday 4th Feb

PlayToon will be in Native Saturday 4th ~ lunch time, collecting more tales from the local skate scene, doodling and copies of an article about the Tyneside skatescene to give out.

"the art of displacement"

The original French term for parkour, which translates into English with brilliant ambiguity. The whole spatial, physical movement of parkour, the ability to move through and in a city space; the phrase certainly captures that plus maybe a sense of difference and alternative. On the other hand it is pretty good summary of the attitude of many city centre managers to the presence of street sports; make them go away, not cluttering up the streets and getting in the way of customers and their cash. Displace the skaters, BMXers and free runners to somewhere out of site and out of mind. Here is another view of NEPK displacing the conventional view of a grade II listed building from polite heritage to living, lively space. Displacing, it seems, works in several ways.