FLACKING – THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF REPAIR

In our throw-away society, where no one is encouraged to repair anything; and where things are made so that they cannot be repaired, coming complete with warnings that one should not even attempt the task, it is refreshing to read about the work of repairing being considered as an art.

An Em Emem repair.

The despairing comment that the smart new cars are so clever that they cannot be repaired by pulling parts from wrecks to make them roadworthy again, is often heard from older men who recall the days of their youth when trash became useful, and broken-down vehicles could be made to go again just with the application of ingenuity and determination. Now, with everything so computerised, repairs can only be made by specialists using exotic equipment: people are being deskilled, turned into dull consumers.

So the article in The Guardian was a delight to discover. One recalled boro and kintsugi – see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2012/08/boro-art-of-mending.html and https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2019/03/kintsugi-art-of-repair.html - where worn and broken items were seen as an opportunity rather than a problem. Flacking does likewise, and gives surprising outcomes.

Boro, kintsugi, and flacking all give one hope that our broken world can be repaired with care and beauty: see - https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2021/may/01/the-artist-who-fills-potholes-with-mosaics-in-pictures?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other (see below).

An Em Emem repair.

A Roman mosaic is discovered.

Flacking could be considered to be reverse archaeology. One is reminded of the beautiful Roman mosaic floors being revealed as the dig proceeds, and the earth is slowly removed. Here, with ‘flacking,’ damage is filled, covered with fresh, piecemeal delights that hint at other visions, secretly, Banksy-style.

A Roman mosaic floor revealed.

An Em Emem repair.

One can only look forward to our cities being repaired using this technique. We see just too much lazy neglect, where, to minimise maintenance, items are removed from public places and carelessly smudged over with messy grout or plywood patches to do away with what authorities see as 'the problem' of repair.

With flacking, the 'problem' becomes the stimulus for a rich embellishment; a tiny flicker of beauty in our all too ordinary, uncared-for environment.

One can envisage an architecture of flacking, a wondrous world where buildings are not seen as unique pieces of art to be considered alone as clever, bespoke works of a monumental genius, but as community, communal pieces and parts that need each other to participate in the whole to complete its richness and embellish its complexity with ordinary beauty.

An Em Emem repair.

Flacking can be seen as a vibrant model for a new architecture, with renewed civic places - for revitalised cities, sensitively repaired, delicately, precisely; not only with responsive detail and deliberate decoration, but also with wondrously rich, contextual colour creating cities that care, fulfilled with ideas and ideals: simple, satisfying enchantment.

THE ARTICLE

The artist who fills potholes with mosaics – in pictures

Paris, 2020 by Em Emem. Photograph: All images courtesy of Em Emem.

 Em Emem is an anonymous, Lyon-based artist. “But I’m just a sidewalk poet, a son of bitumen,” he says. His work involves filling potholes and cracked walls on city streets with beautiful mosaic designs, a process he calls “flacking” – a play on the French word flaque, meaning puddle or patch. He started in 2016, after becoming “hypnotised” by the scarred surfaces of the old alley that housed his first workshop. “My work is the story of the city, where cobblestones have been displaced; a truck from the vegetable market tore off a piece of asphalt,” he says. “Each becomes a flack.”

Em Emem will be creating works from 3 -21 May near the site of the Grand Paris Express in the Île-de-France region. He is also part of a group show, Ceramics Now, 8 June-17 July at La Galerie Italienne in Paris.

Alice Fisher

The Guardian 2 May 2021