Skaters (Japan, Kyoto)

In Japan , skateboarding has long been seen as an intrusive practice in public spaces, due to strict standards of civility and respect for urban order. Japanese sidewalks, often clean and quiet, are rarely thought of as places for play or friction. Yet, in Kyoto , as elsewhere, a young population is slipping into them.

Since skateboarding's entry into the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games , the way we look at this culture has changed. Figures like Yuto Horigome and Momiji Nishiya —gold medalists—have legitimized a practice long considered deviant . But beyond the athletic performance, skateboarding remains an urban language : improvised, social, in tension with the architecture. Here, there's no official skatepark. Just a place , a shelter , friends , and the energy specific to practices that arise on the margins.

Skateboarding in Japan is not just a sport: it is a way of reclaiming a space that is too standardized , of slowing down urbanity, of creating a haptic relationship with the ground, with sliding, with time.