Catharsis and downhill madness in Medellín’s skate scene

Artist and skater Ronal Sanmartin (aka WTF Ronnie) acquired his first board when he was 13. He was at his home in Medellín and was listening to the unmistakable sound of polyurethane on concrete, when his mother came to tell him that there were a couple of ​“crazy guys” skating round the back of the house in the court.

“I went to see them, and it was the first time I’d met a skateboarder in person,” Ronnie recalls. ​“One of them was this punky guy, and we exchanged a couple of words – I told him: ​‘Yo, I want to skate.’ And he told me: ​‘Take my board, I’m gonna come back next week and teach you how to land an ollie.’”

He did, and the pair have been friends ever since. Ronnie, meanwhile has never stopped skating. At the time, the sport was still growing and was yet to hit the mainstream, and finding a board could often be difficult. ​“In Medellín, skateboarding started as a marginal thing – people from the ghetto, punky guys, rappers,” he explains. ​“It was difficult, there were not a lot of shops, not a lot of skateboards, just some mini ramps around the city, but nothing professional. So for a kid from the barrio – the hood – to get a professional board was difficult, but people passed their boards down, and that’s how I got my first board.” 

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Now, Ronnie has teamed up with photographer Lauren Luxenburg to create a new photo series, book and film Touching Ground, which spotlights the booming skate scene in the city, with Luxenberg taking pictures and Ronnie providing creative direction. The pair first met before the pandemic, when Luxenberg travelled to Colombia for the first time and met rapper Sr Pablo, who introduced her to the city’s creative underbelly.

“Sr Pablo walked through the streets with me, and I began to realise the inner workings of the city. Everyone knows everyone, and everyone’s collaborative and friendly with each other,” Luxenberg says. ​“I started taking photos of people in the street because I was interested in their style and their aura. In 2020, I did an exhibition about artists from Medellín, and Ronnie was one of them – he had this completely contagious energy and incredible smile.”

Blending dynamic shots of skaters jumping stair sets and grinding rails with quieter portraits of them hanging out in local bars and restaurants with friends, Touching Ground explores the intersection between Medellín’s skateboarding and creative communities. It’s an intimate window into the scene’s characters, as well as its rebellious, fearless youth.

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Set in the Aburrá Valley, deep in the Andes Mountains, the city’s unique topography directly influences the city’s skating. From its downtown area, the city sprawls up into the mountains up steep slopes into the barrios and favelas, creating a scene that thrives on steepness. One of its biggest get-togethers of the year comes in the form of the Diversión En La Loma – an outrageous downhill jam where skaters bomb straight down streets, pulling powerslides and navigating speed wobbles as they attempt to stay on their boards.

“People here skate with a lot of raw energy,” says Ronnie. ​“They’re bombing hills like crazy motherfuckers, and they are just like: ​‘Fuck the rest, I’m just doing my thing.’ Their attitude is like that because they grew up in raw environments – skateboarding here is a like a form of resistance against the culture of war.”

Medellín has a chequered history. Often remembered as the home city of Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, it saw huge violence in the ​’80s and ​’90s. In 1991, the city recorded nearly 19 homicides a day – making it the most violent city in the world – though nowadays, the crime rate is down by 80%. For younger people growing up in the aftermath of the war’s peak, skating is just one way to reclaim its streets for themselves.

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“Growing up in this city was raw. It was violent – there was a huge war happening in the cartels of Medellín, for territory and for drugs,” he continues. ​“And in the barrios on the margins, like Manrique where I am from, it was super hard. I had a beautiful family, but outside of my house it was super fucked up. You’d go outside to play with your homies, and a war would just start – you’d see bodies in the street, blood… it was hard, man.”

For Ronnie personally, the sport taught him the tools and confidence to express himself in his work, while the project gave him an outlet. ​“When Lauren came, we started talking about our lives, jobs and dreams, and I just told her: ​‘I just want to follow my path in art,’” he says. ​“Skateboarding makes me feel that I can be a creator, I can be a dreamer, I can be a musician, I can be an artist – I can be anything I want to be.”

Touching Ground, then, documents a new generation who are reshaping the city for themselves, while living within the beauty found around its neighbourhoods, parks and mountains. ​“The most interesting part about the city is how strong tradition and culture is, and how much respect the kids have for it,” says Luxenberg. ​“Even kids who are very, very young embody the spirit of tradition and culture, and they have so much respect for their elders, family and people around them, and it shapes the way that community exists.

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“Also, the city is full of nature, and people are super connected to it – they all know how to survive in the wild,” she continues. ​“These skaters would catch a fish and then eat it, or Ronnie’s using a leaf from a plant that we’d buy in London to make our homes look exotic and he’s serving food on it. That’s not something you’d usually associate with skaters.”

Touching Ground is photographed by Lauren Luxenberg and features creative direction from WTF Ronnie. The book is printed by Estudio Dust, with production led by Bill Abner, and designed by Felipe Gonzalez. The film is edited by Ronny Xavier and scored by Nathan Coen and Medellín-based Daniel Obregón in collaboration with musician Pablo Sepúlveda, and will roll out in 2026. Production Design by Laura Henao. 

Isaac Muk is Huck’s digital editor. Follow him on Bluesky.

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