Prazzle

Flacking — .flacking

Pothole on the streets, before and after. The anonymous artist known as Ememem has been filling cracks, potholes and crumbling sidewalks with intricate ceramic tile mosaics since 2016, working in the middle of the night, without permits, calling himself "the pavement surgeon" and "a sidewalk poet, a son of bitumen."

He calls the practice "flacking" from the French flaque, meaning puddle. Each piece is site-specific, shaped to fit the exact wound in the road. The work draws a clear line to kintsugi, the Japanese tradition of repairing broken objects with gold, the idea that damage, made visible and beautiful, becomes stronger than what was there before.

The city of Lyon has since commissioned Ememem to design an entire network of bicycle paths. His identity remains unknown.

All images courtesy of .flacking