High-Caliber Subculture on Tape

My interest in skateboarding started at a young age. I was maybe seven or eight years old, and I had what I fondly referred to as “my skateboarding crew.” That crew consisted of three core members — my older sister, neighbor, and me — along with whoever any of us had over for a playdate.

The reality is that this crew was actually just a bunch of little kids skateboarding in a driveway or in our neighborhood cul-de-sac, attempting to do kickflips, hyping each other up, and shouting, “I just did it! Did you see? I just did a kickflip!”

Honestly, none of us were gifted skateboarders. What we considered kickflips resembled angry stomping and these weird, little jumps that looked like we were being maneuvered by an awkward and uncoordinated marionette puppeteer. 

It’s a time I look back on fondly. While my skateboarding crew never reunited, I’ll always feel warmly towards the sport — despite the fear that I’ll get decked by a skateboarder zooming by while I walk in Washington Square Park. Skateboarding stirs up the perfect cocktail of fascination, confusion, and simple childhood memories, so when I found out the Museum of The Moving Image would be showcasing a street skating exhibit, I had to check it out. 

Recording the Ride: The Rise of Street-Style Skate Videos is guest-curated by Michaela Ternasky-Holland and Jacob Rosenberg, showcasing artifacts and archival footage of street skaters from the 1980s and 1990s. The two curated a phenomenal exhibit: the backstory combined with the community of people it brought together made a lasting impression.  

Ternasky-Holland’s father was renowned skateboard filmmaker Mike Ternasky, who passed away in a car accident before she was born. He had a lasting impact on many lives including Rosenberg, whom he closely mentored professionally and personally.

Today, Rosenberg is an accomplished Los Angeles-based director who has created campaigns with the NBA, MLB, Burger King, Beats By Dr. Dre, and more. 

Rosenberg has been a long-time mentor to Ternasky-Holland, a Peabody-nominated and Emmy Award-winning director specializing in storytelling with immersive and interactive technology. The two always wanted to work on a project to preserve and honor Ternasky’s legacy. Recording the Ride was a long time coming. The seeds of the idea were planted about five years ago when they visited the Brooklyn Museum together to see JR: Chronicles.

We “looked at each other and said, ‘How cool would it be if we could make a project in honor of my father?’ At the time, we thought it would be a documentary, but it was so interesting that we made that promise to each other in a museum, and then five years later we're in a museum honoring my father. It's such a beautiful thing,” Ternasky-Holland told Now Frolic. 

One of Ternasky-Holland’s goals is to get her father’s video footage into The Library of Congress. A museum screening is a prerequisite, and Recording The Ride checked that box. Ternasky’s archival films, projected onto the museum’s walls, were the first things I noticed when I arrived. 

The exhibit itself is intensely nostalgic — a portal to the end of the twentieth century in the best way possible. Decks traverse the ceilings. VHS tapes of skate films are stacked in glass cases. A La-Z-Boy and a bulky TV set are artfully displayed without overtaking the space. All of these elements work in harmony to underscore what Ternasky-Holland refers to as this “sweet moment in time” where technology was accessible enough for people to make their own films, but there were still some barriers to entry. It took a modicum of effort; it wasn’t as simple as picking up an iPhone and hitting record. 

The late Ternasky was more than a casual hobbyist filmmaker—he was the real deal. In 1991, he founded Plan B Skateboards, a San Diego-based skateboarding company that is still in business today. His 1992 film Questionable set new standards in street skating.

Ternasky didn’t just have a major impact on skateboarding culture; he played a pivotal role in many skaters’ lives. Ternasky-Holland learned this firsthand when she began planning the exhibit and connecting with her father’s contemporaries.

“For the first time, whether I was on an email with people like Tony Hawk or on a Zoom with Matt Hensley,  I was actually being spoken to and communicated with as Mike Ternasky's daughter. It was like, ‘oh wow, I am the daughter of this person that means a lot to these people’ and I had never really felt that my whole life.” Ternasky-Holland said.

Inside the exhibit, it was impossible to miss how deeply Ternasky’s work resonated with viewers. I heard someone exclaim, “Oh my god. That’s a video of young Rob Dyrdek!” A couple asked me to take a picture of them in front of some of the old skateboard films that were playing.

The success of Recording The Ride is clear, confirmed by the museum extending it by six weeks. Whether or not they were skaters — or even born in the 1980s or 1990s — guests were hit with a wave of nostalgia. Perhaps that comes from the medium itself, or from the opportunity to look through a window the past and discovery idols in a new way. Personally, I was happily surprised to discover a video of a young Tony Hawk before he became the famous Tony Hawk we know today.

“[Austin Smith from the Museum] sent me a photo of how packed the weekend after New Year’s was, and it sparked so much joy because you could feel that the exhibit translated beyond skateboarding and that people wanted to be inside of it and discover,” Rosenberg said. 

Rosenberg and Ternasky-Holland were thrilled when they found out the exhibit was extended. 

“There was just this gratitude and genuine excitement that more people would get to experience it and that the museum stood behind how successful of an exhibit it is,” Rosenberg said. “I am also happy Michaela gets to go and be around the energy of her father and all the culture that he helped influence.” 

“ The Museum of the Moving Image took a big risk. It’s really the first time an institution of this caliber and level showcased skate culture. It is just incredible the amount of support and the amount of attendees that have given such positive feedback,” Ternasky-Holland said.

Prestigious museums should continue to invest in exhibits that honor sport subcultures, as well as the people behind the scenes. Speaking with guests and with Rosenberg and Ternasky-Holland, it is clear how much this exhibit resonated with museumgoers.

Recording the Ride: The Rise of Street-Style Skate Videos is on display at the Museum of the Moving Image until March 16, 2025.

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