Skateboarding takes centre stage this Summer at Noosa Regional Gallery, where three compelling exhibitions challenge perceptions of the sport, revealing it instead as a profound expression of freedom and resilience.
Opening Friday 12 December 2025 with a public event, this trio of shows invites audiences to view skateboarding not as public nuisance, but as a platform for the reclamation of place, identity, and spirit.
GAZA SKATE TEAM
In a powerful act of resilience and perseverance, Rajab Al Reefi and his peers in the self-proclaimed Gaza Skate Team, capture their lives within a war-torn landscape and their attempts to hold onto some sense of freedom and agency through the simple act of skating. Documenting their efforts through photographs and videos, the exhibition shares scenes of young people reclaiming bombed streets as makeshift skateparks, rolling over fractured concrete, jumping fallen pylons, and even balancing atop an unexploded missile in one heart-in-mouth scene.
In other captured moments, the courage and compassion of Gaza Skate Team is front and centre as they teach local children to skate, transforming fear into fleeting moments of joy. In defying the destruction that relentlessly surrounds them and threatens their very ability to survive, the Gaza Skate Team reclaims not only their streets, but their sense of humanity and freedom.
SHAUN GLADWELL: STORM SEQUENCE
Celebrated Australian artist Shaun Gladwell brings his iconic video work Storm Sequence (2000) to the Sunshine Coast in a rare opportunity to see this pivotal piece outside major institutions.
Filmed at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, Gladwell’s slow-motion performance captures a lone skateboarder moving against the turbulence of an oncoming storm. Wind and rain lash at the figure, transforming the familiar coastal setting into a meditation on isolation, resistance, and the human psyche.
Described by Gladwell as a “slowed-down painting,” the work exemplifies his concept of ‘performative landscapes’ that question the function of objects and spaces through experimental misuse. This early and career-defining piece reimagines how movement can transform both body and environment.
REFUSE
Sunshine Coast-based artist and curator Warwick Gow turns his lens toward Southeast Queensland’s underground skate scene in Refuse – a photographic exploration of forgotten spaces reborn through creativity and rebellion.
From humid suburban sprawl to derelict industrial corners, Gow documents the myths surrounding a secret skate spot known only through whispers and word of mouth. His images reveal a thriving subculture bound by community, ingenuity, and a refusal to conform, where utilitarian concrete objects and spaces become canvases for personal expression and freedom.
Across these three exhibitions, skating is revealed as a medium for self-expression against backdrops of authority and legitimacy as imposed by others. While the extremities of this vary, the reach for freedom and the proclamation of identity in contested space remain the same.
Exhibition opens Friday 12 December, 5.30 – 7.30pm. Free tickets via noosaregionalgallery.com.au
In Conversation event is on Friday 12 December 4.30-5.30pm. (immediately prior to exhibition opening event). Free tickets via noosaregionalgallery.com.au
Noosa Regional Gallery Director, Michael Brennan will be joined by Shaun Gladwell and Warwick Gow for a conversation about their exhibitions.
