Underground Paris is an organisation dedicated to documenting and telling the story of street art and graffiti culture.

By means of this project, it seeks to preserve under-recognised histories, promote inclusion in the arts, create a bridge between urban and contemporary art, and convey knowledge widely through digital access – making this culture accessible to audiences differently to traditional art spaces.

The structure invites artists from outside street and graffiti culture to engage directly with its methods – working in public space, responding to the environment, and understanding the philosophies that underpin these practices. Street art and graffiti have historically functioned as relatively closed networks, often shaped by socio-economic barriers and informal systems of knowledge transmission. This model opens that network while maintaining its integrity.

This exchange is deliberately two-directional.

Artists rooted in graffiti and street culture gain access to forms of social and cultural capital often reserved for those with formal training – curators, residencies, institutional funding, and exhibition opportunities in well-resourced spaces such as galleries and museums.

On the contrary, artists from the formal art world are introduced to alternative ways of thinking and making. They encounter not only new techniques and materials, but also different frameworks around authorship, site, architecture, and the function of art in public space.

We document artworks that emerge organically in public spaces, while also supporting the production of new work. This takes place across a spectrum – sometimes with permission from property owners or local authorities, and sometimes without authorisation, in line with traditional graffiti practices.

We do not treat authorisation as a defining boundary. Instead, we reflect the reality of street art culture, which has always existed both within and outside formal permission structures.

Participation does not require artists to put themselves at legal risk. Rather, we introduce the philosophical foundations of unauthorised practice – why, in certain contexts, working without permission may be understood not as harm, but as a contribution.

• Dual-purpose: a platform for documentation and a framework for collaboration, specifically functioning as a system of interaction, where different artistic communities exchange knowledge, access, and perspectives.

• Broadening participation and inclusivity, a primary objective is to expand who participates in culture by leveraging the inclusive nature of street art, which often challenges conventional ideas of ownership and private property to make art more accessible.

• By holding public space as a primary site of practice, the project redefines where culture is experienced, transforming neglected or abandoned areas into sites of visual culture and enhanced community experience.