Embassy of EGS
In 2024, the Didrichsen Art Museum was transformed into the embassy of the imaginary Republic of EGS. The exhibition brought together paintings, drawings, graffiti works, glass sculptures and installations, inviting visitors to travel through the republic’s six territories: geography, folklore, language, identity, landscape and the underground. The exhibition was accompanied by the 120-page publication Republic of EGS – Travel Guide • Matkaopas • Reseguide, published by the Didrichsen Art Museum.

This Could Go on Forever explored the relationship between graffiti, glass and movement through a continuously evolving process. A graffiti painting made in an abandoned industrial site in Estonia was documented and transformed into a glass sculpture in Finland. The sculpture then returned to Estonia, where it became the starting point for a new intervention, documentation and object.

The cycle continued for a year, creating a dialogue between locations, materials and realities, a process that, in theory, could continue forever.

The project resulted in an exhibition at Serlachius Museums and a publication of the same name, published by Serlachius Museums and Parvs.

EGS, Finland’s internationally most widely known graffiti artist, has discovered a new means of expression in the endangered craft of glassblowing. In February 2020, an impressive display combining glass, painting and photography by EGS will be on show in the large exhibition room of the Finnish Glass Museum.

EGS, has discovered a new means of expression in the endangered craft of glassblowing. In February 2020, an impressive display combining glass, painting and photography by EGS will be on show in the large exhibition room of the Finnish Glass Museum.

The collections of the Finnish Glass Museum contain a large number of rare works in glass art, and the museum is an important centre of glass art also internationally. Located in Riihimäki, the museum building was originally built as ground peat plant in 1914, after which it was a glassworks, among other uses, and finally the crystal cutting facility of the Riihimäki Glassworks. The Finnish Glass Museum moved into the building in 1980. The museum and its permanent exhibitions were designed by academician Tapio Wirkkala.

The EGS exhibition will be held in the museum’s large exhibition room, which used to be the glassblowing workshop of the old glassworks. The exhibition room has been a venue for solo exhibitions of work by leading Finnish glass artists from Oiva Toikka to Nanny Still and from Kaj Franck to Helena Tynell.

With its trains and railway yards, Riihimäki is also a link with Finnish graffiti culture.
‘A few decades ago, I travelled to Riihimäki to paint graffiti on trains, and now I’m on a train on my way to meet master glassblowers. The same locality is again serving as a background for something new, giving an added meaning to what I do. You think of what you did in your youth from a new angle and return to that mindscape and transfer also that in a new way into art’, EGS explains.