The Japanese culture teaches the art of kintsugi, where broken objects are not something to hide but to display with pride. It’s called kintsugi or kintsukuroi, which means golden (“kin”) and repair (“tsugi”). It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, finding beauty in something that is thought to be a trash. Ememem is an artist from France, who does something like that. Ememem finds potholes on the streets of Lyon, France and fills them up with beautifully decorated mosaics.
Although a lot of artists wouldn’t choose potholes as their canvas, Ememem’s work can really bright your day once you see it while randomly walking down the street. He uses bright colors to make his work pop out, and really it’s a great addition to the cracked roads. The artist’s mission is to patch up the broken pavement of the city and transform it into something beautiful.
” I’m a sidewalks’ poet, a modern minstrel that tells popular stories…I admit I really like when they call me ‘contemporary artist’ even if I know I’m just a son of a bitumen. The street rocked part of my childhood and all my adolescence. I had no plans to become a street artist at all but it made sense to become one,” shared the artist when reached out by Earthwonders.
“The flacking is a place of love . With that technic, I try to write a poem that everybody can read. But I’m not just Mother Teresa of the mistreated sidewalks. My work forms a memory notebook of the city. It reveals what happened, the life in this public places. Here cobblestones have been picked up and thrown, there a truck from the vegetable market tore off a piece of asphalt… I take note and this memory becomes a “flack” I will continue this research to experience all the poetic and emotional forces that can enrich my work according to the nature of each repaired hole,” added the artist,” added the artist.
His art hasn’t gone unnoticed, and below we will share some bits of it with you as well. Scroll down below to see some awesome additions on the streets of Lyon.
More info: ememem-flacking.net | Instagram
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