Skate - Cultures en mouvement

The exhibition highlights the Mucem’s collection, a unique reference collection in Europe, shedding light on skateboarding from the 1960s to the present day. A sporting practice that has become an Olympic discipline, skateboarding is also a culture in its own right, even a counterculture, guided by core values such as freedom and risk-taking and characterized by its own visual universe.

The Mucem exhibition looks back at 60 years of history that have shaped the culture and myths of a now-global practice. It offers new insight into the history of skateboarding in the Mediterranean, starting in Marseille, world-famous for its iconic Prado bowl. The exhibition also focuses on the profound transformations the practice has undergone in recent years, examining the new identities and social connections embodied by female and male skateboarders.

Types of works Skateboards and skateboarding equipment, contemporary artworks, photographs, videos, skateboard rails/ramps, clothing, magazines, stickers, posters, VHS tapes and records, DIY tools.

Mucem works The collection—comprising around one thousand objects, about thirty archival boxes and films—sheds light on skateboarding from historical, sociological and technical perspectives. It brings together documents and objects (boards, equipment, clothing, photographs, VHS tapes, stickers, magazines, fanzines, etc.) used or signed by legendary skateboarders, as well as collections donated by amateurs. This body of material comes from research and collecting carried out between the early 1990s and the 2000s by two research officers at the Centre d’Ethnologie Française of the CNRS, attached to the MNATP: ethnologist Claire Calogirou and sociologist Marc Touché, with the help of anthropologist and psychosociologist Marie Cipriani-Crauste.

In 2025, three research-and-collection projects devoted to “Skateboarding Lands in the Mediterranean” were launched as part of the process of updating this historic collection. Led by a scientific committee made up of specialists and practitioners, they examine, through three case studies, the development of skateboarding in the Mediterranean over the past twenty years.

Valentin Chenier, a doctoral student at the University of Tempere and a skateboarder, analyzes the political, economic and cultural implications of the development of skateboarding in Taghazout, Morocco. Sébastien Carayol, a documentary filmmaker and skateboarder, studies the contemporary social, commercial and tourist dynamics associated with the unprecedented growth of skateboarding in Barcelona, Spain, since the 1990s. Claude Queyrel, founder of the magazine endless line and a skateboarder, Pierre Pauselli and Florent Theron, coordinators at the Board Spirit Marseille association and skateboarders, examine the practices and uses of DIY skateparks in Marseille, which trace a parallel history of skateboarding in the Phocaean city.

These three research-and-collection projects will make a considerable contribution to enriching the Mucem’s archival holdings and collection.