Urban Mythologies Change this

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Urban Mythologies is an ongoing project by Sergios Strigklogiannis and Francesca Cocchiara supported by the LINA Fellowship program 2022-23. The inspiration came from the city of Athens, a place where history, myths, but also critical urban issues coexist. During the crisis, we noticed how mythology and the power of narratives were, on one side, exploited, for instance by the tourist industry, and on the other a tool for reclaiming the right to the city.

These observations, and the belief that narratives help to understand complex contemporary urban realities and to reveal otherwise invisible socio-spatial issues, shaped the idea of Urban Mythologies, an awareness-raising writing project which through myths intends to explore some of the most pressing urban problems in different cities.

Urban Mythologies consists of three main elements: the urban issues to analyze and highlight; the local myths and narratives, which would offer the tools to discover and narrate the urban issues; and the theoretical framework to explore and understand the urban issues.

Everyday life struggles in the city, the spatial manifestations of urban memory or trauma, gentrification, touristification, spatial injustice, invisible urban poverty, the threats of urban commons, and the environmental criticalities of contemporary cities are some of the urban issues that the writing project aims to highlight. As for the myths of each city, they are intended in a broader sense meaning the actual mythology of the city, tales or stories, urban narratives (dominant or bottom-up), and also collective imaginaries of urban geographies.

Ultimately, the material coming from the aforementioned research in different cities will be presented in an Atlas of Urban Mythologies. This is imagined as a collection of chapters each one dedicated to a different European city, using local myths, narratives, and untold stories as Ariadne’s thread in order to reveal and raise awareness of otherwise invisible urban issues.

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