#8: Skateboarding for Reimagining Urban Communities

with Christian Fischer & Johannes Wimmeder
Vienna, Austria

This week, Cities Reimagined takes us to Peru and Vienna to discuss skateboarding. My guests, Christian Fischer and Johannes Wimmeder stayed in Cerrito de le Virgen in northern Peru for a while to work with the NGO Concrete Jungle Foundation. Cerrito de le Virgen is a neighbourhood characterized by displacement and replacement of residents due to extreme weather events and archaeological finds. In this delicate environment, they teamed up with the local community to design and build a skatepark, to plant the seed with capacity and, foremost, create a shared and safe place for everyone. Christian followed the project with his camera and produced the documentary “El Cerrito” which is out now. 

It was time for me to sit down with Christian and Johannes to talk kick-flips and….

🛹 What skateboarding has to do with the appropriation, safety and production of urban space

🪴How the work of Concrete Jungle Foundation is building capacities in local communities to improve the quality of life for everyone

📚 What life skills skateboarding teach the young, and not-so-young ones.

🦽How skaters (.. but also the elderly and people with special mobility needs) perceive urban space differently

🌃 How local administrations increasingly take into account the perspectives of skaters in urban design

…. and a lot more background stories on El Cerrito. 

Concrete Jungle Foundation is an innovative non-profit that works to empower individuals and communities worldwide through fostering and sustaining the positive values inherent to skateboarding. 

Watch Christian’s documentary El Cerrito online: Click here for Youtube.

Follow and support Concrete Jungle Foundation: https://concretejunglefoundation.org // Instagram

Follow Johannes’ Skateboard Club Vienna: https://skateboardclubvienna.at // Instagram