Description
« This book questions the way skateboarding can disturb the public policies by unveiling the real face of Havana. By banning the practice, the government is further strengthening the cohesion of skaters on the island. They spend their days in the contrasting streets of Havana, dreaming of a free life; skateboarding is a means to escape everyday difficulties. They seek openness to the world and emancipation from a policy of control. Many of them would like to leave Cuba but it is not with 20 euros per month of average salary, a restricted migratory flow, and need of obtaining an invitation letter abroad that these young people are ready to move. So, while waiting for their lucky star, the one that will lead them to discover the world, they consume life. They play with everything that is prohibited because the practice of skateboarding is oppressed”
Havana is for them the capital of an island with no escape route. The one which at first glance seems so beautiful, which surrounds itself with turquoise waters and lives in buildings with colonialist architecture where its dancers stroll without limit, its big charming smiles, and its American cars of the 50s is in depth, very complex. Cuba has endowed itself with a colossal historical and cultural heritage, revealing a deep unease behind it: a population that suffers the brunt of poverty, a population that feels deeply chained to this island, a population growing under the dogma of individualism."
