WE SKATE HARDCORE – Photographs from Brooklyn’s Southside 

In 1993, photographer Vincent Cianni moved to the Southside of the Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY. Once there, he quickly became entrenched in the community and the vivid character of this predominantly Latino neighborhood - the sounds, smells and sights – captivated him. Soon, Cianni was taking his camera out into the streets of Williamsburg to photograph the people he saw every day. In particular, Cianni was drawn to a group of Latino teenagers whose passion was inline skating. They spent their days building itinerant skate parks, practicing and learning new stunts, and growing up in a somewhat disenfranchised community. Over the course of the next eight years, Cianni continued to photograph this same group of boys as they grew into young men. He photographed them skating, hanging out with friends, with family, through relationships, and eventually starting careers and families of their own. In the book, We skate Hardcore, short essays from Cianni, photographs, video stills, and commentary from the skaters themselves—either written directly on their photographs or taken from Cianni’s conversations with the boys—combine in a visually stunning package that traces the lives of one group of friends with a passion for skating.

The stunning photographs of We Skate Hardcore reveal the determination, the dreams, and the rough and tumble story of urban Latino youth coming of age in New York City. Vincent Cianni spent eight years photographing and documenting a group of Latino in-line skaters in the Southside of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Cianni weaves together images of the skaters with their own words, showing the skaters' struggles to find a place to skate and build skate parks, and just to survive in the city. In the evacuated industrial spaces of their neighborhood, the skaters carve out places for enjoying their sport and showing off their skills—often thwarting established rules and authority figures in the process. Their stories are both personal and resonant; they reflect the trials and tenacity of a young urban culture, as well as life in Southside's Latino community.

"We Skate Hardcore points to a very hard reality. Cianni's photographs bear faces of an enduring working class, the people of 'Los Sures' in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. You see their desire for life, family, home, and community, to move forward and become someone. You also see in these bold as well as intimate portraits, scenes, action shots, and still video sequences, the life, blood, spirit, conscience, pride, and zeal of young in-line skaters and their tribes." ~ Juan Sanchez,Hunter College

"Chronicling young, mostly Latino people who used neighborhood parks and plazas to perfect their inline skating moves. . . . More than just cool action shots. The images portray how these teens climbed toward adulthood in a changing neighborhood’s public spaces."  ~Time Out New York

"Cianni's collection of photographs is an arresting look at a group of boys who embraced a dangerous sport and in the process of building their skate parks and learning new stunts, formed a tight-knit community of friends who looked out for each other and helped one another survive." ~ Brooklyn Paper

"Think 'West Side Story' with skates." ~Boston Sunday Globe

"Vincent Cianni has published a gritty turbulent account of a group of Latino in-line skaters hanging out and rolling through the rugged Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, New York." ~Photo District News

"An evocative collection of black-and-white and full-color photographs captures the intriguing world of urban skaters, both in words and images." ~Forecast

“An amazingly vivid documentary that runs the full gamut from exhilaration to devastation, and back. It’s more exhilarating than not, because it’s how kids invent their own lives, whatever life handed them.” -Luc Sante