EMEMEM (FR)
Unlike many street artists who choose to paint on building facades or gable end walls, it’s through colourful interventions on roads and sidewalks that Ememem invites us to (re)discover the city.
From Lyon to Turin via Madrid, Ememem repairs and transforms the scourge of our roads and pavements – potholes and cracks – into "puddles" of colour with locally sourced ceramic tiles and grout. Not only does this so-called ‘street flacking’ project fulfill a utilitarian function by stepping in where City’s Council are failing to maintain public highways and pathways, it does so while bringing a touch of surrealism and magic to the city.
A poet at heart, Ememem names each intervention specific to their context, giving each one its own identity and its own story.
Demonstrating the artist’s love of literature, the term ‘flacking’ is borrowed from the popular Harry Potter novels, and describes a common Quidditch foul that consists of a Keeper defending from behind the hoops rather than in front – a metaphor perhaps for Ememem’s anonymous, illegal and renegade brand of urban beautification…and unsanctioned street art practice in general.
