Luan Oliveira is a skating survivor. Born in the favelas of Porto Alegre, Brazil, his parents gave him up just after birth, leaving him to be raised by his grandmother. He came of age in a cluster of shanty homes where violence was a way of life, and skateboarding was about as welcome as outsiders.
"Where I grew up, there were very young kids that carried around guns," he says. "If anyone tried to get into our neighborhood, these kids would stop them at gunpoint and make sure they belonged."
Still, at the age of nine, Oliveira received a small plastic board as a gift. It sat unused for months, until Oliveira caught a glimpse of someone shredding on a skateboard. Almost immediately, something clicked. Oliveira dusted off his board and spent each day practicing at a local concrete skate plaza. It didn't take long before the young prodigy had amassed an arsenal of tricks, and began developing an extended family – of skateboarders.
Full of passion but penniless, Oliveira convinced his local skate shop to pay for his bus ticket and entry fee to compete in a street contest. He took second place in the competition, then sold his product prizes in order to pay for more bus tickets, contest fees and food. Oliveira's skate life continued like this for several years. After each competition, he and his friends would skate all night at bus stations until the first bus arrived to take them back to Porto Alegre. Then in 2005, tragedy struck twice. Oliveira's grandmother and his father passed away in the same week. Skateboarding became his one true family.
Oliveira continued to skate unremittingly in parks, plazas, contests and bus stops
until one day a YouTube clip of his exploits found its way to Ben Powell from Sidewalk
magazine, who forwarded it on to Geoff Rowley, pro skater and co-
Luan Oliveira