Outback Skateparks was born from Johnston’s doctoral practice-based research, Skateparks: Trace and Culture, and turns its attention to Australia’s remote and regional skateparks. The work considers these sites as traces of urban skate culture, situated within regional communities, often separated by vast distances.

A tennis court shares its playing surface with a quarter-pipe. Red desert sand encroaches on smooth concrete. A collection of shopping trollies is ritualistically abandoned. Declarations of love are etched into tree bark and timber benches. Dramatic narratives play out across the surfaces of ramps. These are skateparks built, used and marked differently from their urban cousins. The traces reveal how people relate to these spaces, and speak of resourcefulness, community and a desire to make room to socialise and play where alternatives are sometimes limited.