A new exhibit at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art is shedding light on hidden aspects of surf culture, including racism and elitism.
"Whose Waters?" features the work of nine artists from around the world. It combines photography, painting, filmmaking, and more to tell stories about how surf culture affects people of color.
Gabriella Angotti-Jones, a Los Angeles-based photojournalist, contributed to the exhibit. She is showcasing seven prints from her photo book, "I Just Wanna Surf," which focuses on the Black femme surf experience.
“I tried to look for people who had similar experiences to me, being either rejected from the surf world or feeling uncomfortable,” Angotti-Jones said.
Angotti-Jones grew up in the predominantly white community of Capistrano Beach. She said she initially felt excluded and discriminated against in its surf culture.
Later, she reconnected with the community and found people with similar experiences, which she said helped her process depression and racial trauma.
“I was able to meet up with a bunch of other people that looked like me,” Angotti-Jones said. “They helped me process my depression, and I learned to love surfing again.”
Her photos were taken mostly in Southern California, but also in Florida and New York. She said one subject, a girl named Autumn, faced prejudice as a Black surfer.
“I actually have a piece in the show, which is a picture of her laying on her board, and it has one of the embroidered words on it,” Angotti-Jones said. “She was harassed by a couple white surfers in Rockaway.”
While her photos highlight racism in the surf world, Angotti-Jones also aimed to capture the joy of the sport.
“I think people really want to see themselves,” Angotti-Jones said. “They want to see joy, and they want to see what the true core of surfing is, which is having fun, connection and community.”
Emma Saperstein, who curated the SLOMA exhibit, said Angotti-Jones' work shows that racism still exists in surf culture.
“Gabriella's work really grounds the show, and her work is about visibility– about owning your rightful space in the water,” Saperstein said.
As a surfer herself, Saperstein wanted to highlight underrepresented voices in the surf world.
“The motivation for the show was really, like, let's think together about how to be better stewards of the space that we occupy in the ocean, how to make it a more inclusive environment and navigate together some of the harder histories that come with the surf industry,” Saperstein said.
Other local contributions include two boards sculpted by shaper Shea Somma. One of his boards, a white shortboard often used by expert surfers, is placed in the center of the exhibit. In contrast, a blue Wavestorm, a mass-produced and inexpensive board for beginners, is displayed further back.
Saperstein said expert surfers can exclude beginners on local beaches, and the display of these boards comments on that experience.
“His insight and his thinking, that is so connected locally, felt really important in this project to challenge his practice and move it away from the craft of making boards into social commentary and critique,” Saperstein said.
The exhibit also includes works highlighting indigenous and queer surfing experiences.
Photographs by Australian Aboriginal artist Vernon Ah Kee focus on race riots in Australia in the early 2000s. He showcased photos of Indigenous surfers holding boards decorated with Aboriginal flag colors. Words in large black print next to his work read, "We grew here."
“He’s taking these words that were used in those riots as aggressive slogans, like ‘we grew here, you flew here,’ and he's taking them out of context and reclaiming them as an indigenous person with indigenous identity in Australia,” Saperstein said.
Saperstein hopes the exhibit prompts local surfers to reflect on their actions.
“I want people to leave the show with hope and joy, but I also want them to really think about their own relationship to the water, their own ideologies that they perpetuate that are healthy or unhealthy for society,” Saperstein said.
Photographer Angotti-Jones said the exhibit shows that surfing is becoming more inclusive but also reminds people to address the realities of its culture.
“These are things that can't be ignored when we go surfing or when we enter the water, and I think that's a really powerful reminder that surfing isn’t excluded from the harder discussions,” Angotti-Jones said.
The “Whose Waters?” exhibit is at SLOMA until Oct. 20.
The KCBX Arts Beat is made possible by a grant from the Community Foundation, San Luis Obispo County.
