Αrt, Graffiti in the City (AGC) is a non-profit which adheres to the motto that, if you want to know more about a city, you should look at its walls. It was founded in 2021, and its core team has had a solid background in diverse fields of academic research. AGC is based in Athens, Greece but it aspires to be active around the globe. Its primary research field is arts and culture in contemporary urban public space.More particularly, AGC critically investigates, processes and assesses, in an interdisciplinary manner, how graffiti- tagging and street art- affect and interact with preserved monuments, urban landmarks, antiquities, and public art works; alsoAGC is pioneer in Greece regarding the examination of how the above affect local business, residents, visitors, and tourists. AGC focuses its research in selected historic city centers in Greece and abroad. To fulfill its scopes, it collaborates with various Greek and international institutions, organizations, academics and artists. Lastly, AGC’s wide spectrum of action includes cultural projects and networks, micro-events, conferences, seminars and workshops, educational programs, production of art works, and cultural walks, while investing in New Technologies.

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Our Mission

Walking around in the city, one sees that walls can “talk”. Α cultural palimpsest is unfolding in a
ostensibly chaotic visual narrative, and THIS is the subject matter of contemporary urban space, both public and private Graffiti, in its varied manifestations, is by now a serious constitutional cultural element which massively contributes to the shaping of what is perceived as “the contemporary face” of cities and it is often open for osmosis, but also a battlefield for controversy. In spite of its innate facets, such as locality, transience and temporaneity, graffiti can also be inscribed in both material and immaterial heritage, in the form of a hybrid, and be incorporated in the archival memory of the city.

 

Athens is a constantly expanding, multicultural and luminal metropolis. In such a context, the city functioned and is still functioning as a “test tube” for ideas, notions, stances, practices and wider socio-cultural phenomena, such as graffiti (street art and tagging). 

 

New conditions demand new discourse, new contextualization and critical revisiting with regard to the contemporary ontologies of urban public space. More particularly, there is growing demand for innovative strategies and practices for understanding and managing this space, also under the light of forms of expression, such as graffiti. We are still facing pending questions as to the potential and limitations of the freedom of expression, and to the participation in managing public urban space using optimal practices; moreover we are up against galloping gentrification and obsolete legal frame in need for radical revisions, with respect to heterogeneity and multiculturalism in the city’s fabric. All these elements comprise the rising identity particularly of “historic” cities, such as Athens. This is AGC’s field.

 

In a city as old as 6.500 years, inhabited by more than 6.000.000 people, such as Athens, we say there should be space for all heritages, material, immaterial, and hybrid to breath freely. We say that that what suffocates is certain dominant notions and practices about these heritages. We say that public urban space should be under constant debate and negotiation and that no discourse on expression and identity in contemporary cities should be conducted outside a framework comprising interdisciplinary research, critical re-examination, openness, visibility, inclusion and sustainability. AGC addresses a broad spectrum of people: adolescents and youth, taggers, graffiti writers and street artists, academics and researchers, city center inhabitants from all walks of life, local businesses, visitors and tourists.

 

AGC aspires at actively contributing to urban innovation; we also fervently pursue the recording and archiving of material, immaterial and hybrid heritage in urban public space; we also aim to promote the understanding of complex cultural phenomena unfolding there; lastly we are committed to the cultivation of social and artistic skills of varied groups of people, guided by the principles of innovation, collaboration, openness, visibility, social and cultural dialogue, inclusion and sustainability.