Graduates - Chandon Gallagher

There's a whole lot of essays, books and talks surrounding skateboarding you sort of wonder where it all started. At what point did someone take skateboarding and 'intellectualise' (in no way as an inflammatory term) it?

I guess the quote "Research is to see what everybody else sees, and think what nobody else has thought.” [Albert Szent-Gyorgyi] can be utilised when we keep in mind how skateboarding is studied. The act of and culture is up for debate, it's there to be pulled apart and dissected, with that maybe skateboarding can be 'thought' about in different ways.

This all somewhat leads to this series of interviews we hope to expand upon, 'Graduates', it's a pretty simple premise of finding skateboarders who have in someway utilised and explored skateboarding through academia. 

Feel free to email if you want to get involved - fraserdoughty@googlemail.com

Where and what did you study?

I studied geography at the University of Bristol.

Why did you choose Bristol as the city to be in for 3 years and Geography as a subject?

I chose to study in Bristol primarily because it had good skate spots. Dean Lane particularly appealed to me, especially the down hill section with all the DIY bits. My favourite things to skate are kerbs and polejams, so that section of Deaner was literally my dream spot. Plus, I was properly inspired by all the Bear Myles footage I had seen – that pretty much convinced me to choose Bristol. 

I chose to study geography for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it was my favourite A-Level subject. It offered the scope to study almost anything – including skateboarding. This was something I realised in my final year of A-Levels, when I decided to focus my final project on the socio-economic value of skateparks. After this, I was convinced that geography was the right pathway for me.

Can you expand on how skateboarding informed your choice of degree to study?

I briefly touched on this in my previous answer, but I shall elaborate on it. Skateboarding fits within the scope of geography particularly in its urban context. The primary setting for skateboarding is the city, which is also the focus of urban geography, a sub-discipline of human geography. As skateboarders, we are no strangers to spending time in the city streets. These experiences provide us with a practical understanding of urban life – which puts us in a prime position to study the city. And so that is what I did, through the avenue of urban geography. Although I still had to learn all the other geographical stuff, I found plenty of opportunities to incorporate skateboarding into my studies.

Rallie at the Cabot Circus Car Park - @yo.where.this

What was the title of your dissertation?

My dissertation was titled ‘The Effect of Skateboarding on Shaping Experiences of Urban Public Space’.

What research methods did you utilise to bring the piece of work together?

As the dissertation title suggests, I wanted to study how skateboarding shaped people’s experiences of the Centre Spot, a popular public space in Bristol. To do this, I took a mixed methods approach. Firstly, I recorded skateboarders’ lines through the space, which I then translated into spatial behaviour maps. I over-layed this with the spatial pathways taken by other users, such as pedestrians, cyclists, wheelchair users etc. These maps helped me to understand and portray how different users move about the space, allowing me to identify possible points of conflict.

I also interviewed people who were present at the Centre Spot. I made sure to speak with both skaters and non-skaters – this helped me to uncover the variety of experiences different people have regarding the space and skateboarding. 

Ultimately, these mixed methods enabled me to accurately depict what everyday life at the Centre Spot was like for the people who used it – with a focus on the social value generated by skateboarding.

Are there any studies, books or essays that you researched by other skateboarders?

- Iain Borden’s Skateboarding and the City basically became my bible – if anyone wants to ‘study’ skateboarding, this should be at the top of their reading list.

- Paul O’Connor’s journal articles helped to think about skateboarding in a more insightful and abstract way – these I would also recommend (alongside his book Skateboarding and Religion).

- Chris Giamarino also studied skateboarding from a geographical perspective – his work proved to be useful during my own studies.

- Frederik Angner – he authored a dissertation titled Skateboard Urbanism. This outlines the concept of ‘skate urbanism’ and provides a thorough analysis of skateable public spaces. I am always referring back to this one.

research : Chandon's spatial map pathways at Centre Spot, Bristol

Has your time at university led to a job within the skateboarding industry?

It has, although in an indirect way. I work at CANVAS, a Bristol-based company that designs and constructs concrete skateparks and spaces across the UK. 

In many ways, geography lends itself to this line of work. When we design a skatepark, it is important that we understand the wider context of the development particularly with regards to the particular place and the people who live there. It requires a sensitivity to the local character and culture, since these are all aspects that should inform the skatepark design. 

My role at CANVAS also involves community consultation – listening and speaking to local people who have some stake in the skatepark’s development. These people range from skateboarders, parents, elderly people – basically everyone who constitutes a community. By consulting these people, we can create a skatepark that accommodates the needs of everyone – this is important since we are essentially developing public spaces (which should be democratic and accessible to all). This has a similar premise to the interviews I conducted as part of my dissertation research. Then as now, I made sure to listen to as many people as possible, in order to compare opinions, perceptions, and experiences.

Lastly, would you recommend going into higher education?

I would recommend going into higher education, but only if the person thinks that it is right for them. Everyone has different aptitudes and interests, so people should pick their pathways accordingly. Higher education has been of great value to me, but there are other routes you can take which could prove equally effective. You must choose what is right for you based on your personal preferences. And follow your intuition – I did, and it seems to have worked.

Lipslide Polejam - @lee_jor_dan