A periegesis through the Greek crisis in five graffiti acts: cartographic and photographic dialogues

This chapter has the form of a dialogue between a graffiti practitioner and architectural designer who is interested in writing in space and how we write about writing in space (Konstantinos), and a sociologist and photographer who investigates different forms of visual markers on urban walls and is interested in the subversive politics behind graffiti and street art (Myrto). More specifically, it is a dialogue between: a) the means that the two authors use as their key research modes in their respective disciplines: cartographic drawing and photographic documentation; b) the different ways graffiti and street art have disciplined them to view and research urban environments, and; c) the border crossing experience as practitioner/insiders and researchers/outsiders of the graffiti and street art scene in Athens. As such, the multiple aspects of our identities both as insiders of the graffiti and street art scene in Athens and at the same time as scholars researching the scene from the outside, provide valuable tools with which we unpack the multiple and contradictory narratives of practicing, researching and teaching graffiti and street art in times of crisis. In particular, we are interested in the ways we shape knowledge and the tension between the epistemological and the ontological ways of knowing, seeing and sensing the city through graffiti and street art practices. In other words, by moving from praxis to theory and back, we are attempting to reconcile the problem of knowing and the problem of being part of a specific cultural practice (Avramidis & Tsilimpounidi, 2017).