The Pavement Surgeon

Meet Ememem, an artist known for filling broken sidewalks with colorful mosaics. Also known as ‘the pavement surgeon,’ he believes that repairing the sidewalks is “a poem that everybody can read.” The beautiful and bright additions to the cracks and broken areas of the city serves as a memory notebook of the city, as Colossal details: 

“Here cobblestones have been picked up and thrown. There a truck from the vegetable market tore off a piece of asphalt…”

Ememem’s first mosaic dates back 10 years when he found himself in a damaged alley in Lyon. At that time, he already was working in ceramic and translated that practice to revitalizing the outdoor area. Since 2016, he’s been consistently filling potholes and other divots throughout France. “It’s a succession of a lot of places and reflections, experiments I did before. I had done similar things, with other techniques, other supports, and finally, when this one emerged, I knew I found something that I was going to keep doing for the rest of my life,” he says.

Image via Colossal