Street Artist Ememem Fills Potholes with Mosaics Across Europe

Since 2016, the mysterious French street artist known as Ememem has been filling potholes and cracks in sidewalks with colorful ceramic mosaics, a practice he calls 'flacking'—a portmanteau of the French word 'flaque' (puddle). Inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi (repairing broken ceramics with gold), Ememem creates geometric patterns using tiles of various sizes and tones. Over 350 such works exist in Lyon alone. Despite being technically illegal vandalism, his work has gained popularity: his Instagram account has nearly 150,000 followers, and guided walking tours exist in three French cities to find his pieces. In 2021, the Galerie Italienne in Paris included several of his works in the exhibition 'Ceramics Now,' priced between €10,000 and €12,000 each. Authorities in Lyon's 9th arrondissement have commissioned six works, providing clues on Instagram for followers to locate them. Ememem's mosaics have appeared across France and in Norway, Ireland, Spain, Serbia, Guadeloupe, and Italy—specifically in Genoa, Milan, Turin, and Florence. He was a guest at the Cvtà Street Fest in Civitacampomarano in 2022. His website offers a three-week residency in Cayenne, French Guiana, to learn the flacking technique. Little is known about Ememem himself; his biography states he was part of an underground collective, restored classical mosaics, and produced small rock concerts before finding flacking as the perfect blend of poetry, urban renewal, and art.