Words and photos by Johan Kim

I moved to Toronto in the summer of 2021 and within a year I built a strong sense of connection and brotherhood. Having my youth spent constantly bouncing across six different countries, this place felt especially warm and welcoming to a nomad like me because of a tight knit community. Toronto has been slept on for some time, also going through a video drought, but this year everything started to change. Videos were dropping one after the other, a lot of homies’ names were getting mentioned on bigger platforms, Toronto really felt like it was going through a change. I felt at the right place to witness this sudden growth. I loved every moment with the boys while “Rendered” was being filmed. Everyone was always down have a good time on and off the board. But when they were skating they were passionate and absolutely crushing it. I really felt like everyone needed the opportunity to be seen on larger platforms because they were all so talented. There were lots of memorable times to recall as we bustled through the busy traffic in Toronto, being spontaneous in everywhere we went.

The very first photo I got for this series was Marcangelo’s noseslide at the wooden construction bridge. Italians and Koreans have this kind of synergy man. I especially remember Adam’s wallie because minutes before we took it I had the best street meat of my life (King and Bay). Mason’s spontaneous boardslide was absolutely crazy. I saw the clip from Danny’s HVX and damn it was beautiful. Zach was an animal for doing the ride on grind to pop out to thread the needle shit. I cannot spoil the video too much here, so I guess I’ll have to stop. Big shoutout to our filmer Danny, I hope the boys chip in for a Thai massage for your back after filming with the HVX and the Xtreme for the last two years. Thank you Blue Tile Lounge and Morningbell Skateboards for the ongoing support in our scene. Here is my documentation of the boys while “Rendered” was in the works. Love you everyone, thank you for your open arms.