“Sappho the Eresia:” Place-Making Through Graffiti and Sculpture in Skala Eresos

In Skala Eresos, her anointed birthplace, Sappho, the Archaic Greek poet, is imagined and reimagined. This everyday resurrection of Sappho is visualized in the sculpted and graffitied interpretations of her image and through summertime conversations among locals and tourists in this seaside village located on the island of Lesvos. In this article I explore how vital Sappho remains to place-making in Skala Eresos and draw on relational geographies to attend to the collection and coherence of material and immaterial phenomena displaying Sappho’s legacy in Skala Eresos. Through the study of ten easily visible pieces of public art, graffiti and sculpture, and through ethnographic research, I showcase her cosmopolitan positioning as a cultural zeitgeist and lesbian icon that enables multiple social worlds to coexist.