Socially Engaged Art, or Between Public Art and Street Art: Reflecting on Participatory Murals in Athens and Nicosia

The article examines participatory murals in Athens and Nicosia as hybrid forms situated between street art and public art. Both projects—developed through long-term engagement with local communities—reveal how socially engaged art can reconfigure authorship, legitimacy, and belonging within civic and institutional frameworks. Drawing on two case studies, in Kessariani and Kaimakli, the article demonstrates how sanctioned mural practices may embody the dissenting aesthetics and horizontal ethos of street art while operating within public art’s administrative infrastructures. These works mobilize participation not as token involvement but as genuine cocreation, turning community members into active agents in shaping urban narratives. In Kessariani, a letter-based, politically charged mural performs memory and challenges aesthetic status quo, while in Kaimakli, a bicommunal mural becomes a performance of urban citizenship across divided space. The article argues that such projects occupy a productive interstice, an in-between zone where the collaborative dynamics of socially engaged art transform both the visual and social fabric of the city. By bridging the critical energy of street art and the civic aspirations of public art, participatory murals embody a living negotiation between dissent and consensus in contemporary urban practice.