The zine centring and celebrating Black women surfers

Despite the fact that the origins of surfing have been dated back to 12th-century Polynesia, the persistent surfer archetype is always a white guy with sun-bleached beachy hair. Gabriella Angotti-Jones grew up in Orange County, California – a surfing mecca and home to some of the world’s most famous surfing beaches. “We have Huntington Beach which has been officially branded as ‘Surf City USA’,” explains the LA-based photographer. “There’s also San Clemente, Newport, Laguna Beach, and San Onofre – all really important cultural places for surfing.” Raised so close to the ocean by a skateboarding and snowboarding father, Angotti-Jones was naturally drawn to boardsports but admits she found surf culture “intimidating”. As a Black girl, she didn’t see many people who looked like her out there in the waves or in the pages of the surfing magazines over which she poured avidly. In a conversation over email, she explains, “For a long time I felt [surfing] wasn’t for me, because I didn’t look like the kids doing it.” But the call of the waves compelled her and surfing eventually became the centre of her teen world and a pillar of her burgeoning identity.

Her latest project is I Just Wanna Surf – a zine that pays tribute to the Y2K surf and skateboarding magazines she revered as a teen, but Angotti-Jones places POC and non-binary surfers front and centre, redressing the representation of surfing culture and creating the magazine she wished she’d had access to when she was young. “We made the coverslip a poster, to nod to the posters that used to come in some of these magazines. Also, the opportunity to place Black people in that context seemed so sick to me, as I always wanted to visualise myself in that way.”

Ranging from late summer in 2018 to the end of 2021, Angotti-Jones’ images present dreamy visions of friendship and joy set against the backdrop of the glittering Pacific ocean. Take a through the gallery above for a closer look at I Just Wanna Surf while, below, we talk with Gabriella Angotti-Jones about changing the image of surfing culture, how surfing helped her find her identity, and the profound magic of the waves.

What does surfing mean to you?

Gabriella Angotti-Jones: Surfing is healing. It’s a reorientation. It helps me readjust my attitude, humbles me, connects me to my friends, helps me meet new people, brings me to new places and challenges me in ways I can’t be challenged on land.

What does the ocean represent and what is the appeal of the waves?

Gabriella Angotti-Jones: My friend Kimi says that the ocean grounds her and that after being in the water, the ocean follows her. I really can’t explain it any better than that. Being in the ocean is so uniquely profound. For me, it conjures up feelings of belonging to something incredibly important and powerful.

Please can you introduce Orange County’s surf community to us? What’s the surfing culture like?

Gabriella Angotti-Jones: OC is considered one of the centres of the surfing universe. It’s where the surf industry is pretty much based, as well as where competitive surfing first started. We have Huntington Beach which has been officially branded as ‘Surf City USA’ but I think a lot of communities would say that’s up for debate. We also have San Clemente, Newport, Laguna Beach, and San Onofre – all really important cultural places for surfing. So I think there’s a bit of entitlement there, but it‘s understandable.

Combined with the culture of competitive youth sports and amazing weather all year round, the environment is perfect for athletes of all ages to be grown here. So there are a lot of really talented surfers here, whether they’re sponsored or not. And, in turn, it can be hard to get waves, so it gets competitive out in the water. Sometimes it can get pretty intimidating, but mostly people are pretty chill. I’ve come across my share of assholes, but that’s usually balanced with the nice people that I meet too.

Growing up, it was mostly white men and boys in the water, but now that’s slowly changing. A tonne of young women are coming out of South County right now, and they absolutely rip. OC also has a tonne of surf elders who know so much history. So it’s always fun to chat with them if given the chance and they’re in the mood to talk.

“Growing up, it was mostly white men and boys in the water, but now that’s slowly changing. A ton of young women are coming out of South County right now, and they absolutely rip” – Gabriella Angotti-Jones

In what ways does your book defy or contradict the dominant preconceptions about surf culture?

Gabriella Angotti-Jones: Because it’s photos of Black people! The book covers mostly Black women and I also have one non-binary friend, Chris Blue, in there. There was a narrative shift in surfing in the early 2000s where most surfing was visualised through a very competition and performance-driven lens, even though that’s like two per cent of what surfing actually is.

Surfing is really about friendships, travelling to new places, eating good food and taking naps in random places. Surfing is waking up at five in the morning for swell, screaming with friends, sore muscles and peeing in wetsuits. So I wanted to capture what surfing actually is, rather than what it’s advertised as.

I think advertising surfing that way inadvertently caused people who look like me to think they couldn’t do it. Imagine if our only association with basketball was pro-level basketball players, and then on top of that, we never saw basketball actually being played. That would fuck with kids and people interested in playing basketball – they’d think you’d have to be really good to play it!

Accessibility and a diverse visual representation are so key to getting people into a sport. And surfing has this bottleneck effect, where surfing is limited to coastal areas and to people who can afford the expensive gear. And it’s presented as a white male sport, despite its roots being in indigenous culture, practised by brown and Black people way before that became a thing.

Could you elaborate on the ways in which surf culture became intertwined with your identity as a Black woman?

Gabriella Angotti-Jones: The ocean is who I am, and I grew up in a very surfy part of the country. I grew up getting dropped off at the beach with my friends, where we’d hang out for hours. I spent my entire summers in the harbour or in an outrigger canoe. The ocean was where I could simply exist and challenge myself and figure out who I was. It taught me how to be independent when I felt like I didn’t have much control over my life. So I think there’s an incredible familiarity there, probably more so than anything else I’ve ever done. 

Growing up where I did, the ocean was part of my identity – it was actually the first thing I identified with. Then, as I matured, the rest of my personality filled in – athlete, Italian-American, Black American, creative person. But the base was always the ocean.

Blackness is anything I want it to be, and the ocean makes me feel very, very Black, if that makes sense. Because the ocean is me.

What kind of moments compel you to pick up a camera?

Gabriella Angotti-Jones: Moments of connection, or just interesting juxtapositions. I love irony and sarcasm. I’m trying to work on that actually without making the people or things in the image trivial. I also love weird light and cool compositions.

“I really wanted to show how the magic of surfing is rooted in community and friendships” – Gabriella Angotti-Jones

What would you say are the overarching themes of the book? 

Gabriella Angotti-Jones: Friendship, connection, Blackness, sisterhood, personhood and depression are the book’s main themes. We tried to weave all of those themes together to make it feel like waves of emotion were hitting the reader at different points, just like how it feels to surf.

How do you think the work speaks of friendship?

Gabriella Angotti-Jones: I really wanted to show how the magic of surfing is rooted in community and friendships. I wanted to show exactly what the surfing life is, which is my friends and I being dumbasses and loving and supporting each other. My relationship with my friends has helped me forgive myself for being a depressed person. I didn’t realise how much intrinsic value I had until I saw the way they treated me.

How integral and important is the construction of the book and the gesture to 90s and 00s DIY publications?

Gabriella Angotti-Jones: I cannot stress how absolutely obsessed I am with Y2K surf and skate magazines. Since I felt like I couldn’t participate in the culture – for a long time I felt it wasn’t for me, because I didn’t look like the kids doing it – I felt that I needed to absorb and learn everything about it to make myself more legit. Big Brother, Bl!SSS, Transworld, Ghetto Juice, Foam and Surfer Girl were some of my favourites. Plus the countless other zines I would randomly find at surf shops or in my dad’s studio – my dad is a skateboarder and snowboarder.

I love hardcore music and always identified with punk themes too. I really wanted that to come through in the book’s attitude. We made the coverslip a poster, to nod to the posters that used to come in some of these magazines. Also, the opportunity to place Black people in that context seemed so sick to me, as I always wanted to visualise myself in that way.

I Just Wanna Surf by Gabriella Angotti-Jones is available to pre-order here now