Context
A series of city billboards featuring riddles about what drives us — from dreams to vacations.
Ilya Mozgi’s conceptual project "Riddles for Adults" unfolds in the urban environment across six city billboards, transformed by the artist into an interactive game. Each installation presents a riddle with blank spaces that viewers are invited to fill in mentally. All the answers are united by a shared idea: they embody different forms of change, transformation, and personal growth.
- Ilya MozgiArtistMy project Riddles for Adults in Petrozavodsk is an attempt to create a tool for social dialogue between the artist, the bank, and an anonymous viewer who becomes engaged in conversation through reading the text. It was important for me to find a point of interaction with a person I will never meet and to sense the overall social mood. That’s why I selected the words with great precision and encoded them carefully.
The answers form a set of six key concepts connected through shared meanings and all containing the letter "T", which functions both as a structural element of the words and as a subtle point of contact with the brand.
Ilya Mozgi’s conceptual project "Riddles for Adults" unfolds in the urban environment across six city billboards, transformed by the artist into an interactive game. Each installation presents a riddle with blank spaces that viewers are invited to fill in mentally. All the answers are united by a shared idea: they embody different forms of change, transformation, and personal growth.
- Ilya MozgiArtistMy project Riddles for Adults in Petrozavodsk is an attempt to create a tool for social dialogue between the artist, the bank, and an anonymous viewer who becomes engaged in conversation through reading the text. It was important for me to find a point of interaction with a person I will never meet and to sense the overall social mood. That’s why I selected the words with great precision and encoded them carefully.
The answers form a set of six key concepts connected through shared meanings and all containing the letter "T", which functions both as a structural element of the words and as a subtle point of contact with the brand.
Placed along the alley, the six city billboards function as a kind of intellectual pathway: the viewer walks down the street, reads the phrases, guesses, compares, and becomes part of a game that invites them to see familiar words as stages of their own personal development.
Placed along the alley, the six city billboards function as a kind of intellectual pathway: the viewer walks down the street, reads the phrases, guesses, compares, and becomes part of a game that invites them to see familiar words as stages of their own personal development.
Process
Art form: city billboard installation
Style: conceptual
Material: paper
Style: conceptual
Material: paper
Ilya Mozgi primarily works with text. His artworks are built around concise phrases, minimalist typography, and subtle irony, where meaning often outweighs visual expression. Advertising surfaces naturally align with this language: they are environments where text traditionally dominates, and where viewers are conditioned to absorb short, quickly readable messages. This is why the city billboard becomes an ideal medium for Ilya. His artistic gesture is embedded within the structure of urban communication, yet it redirects it.
As in projects by other artists, working with an advertising medium disrupts the habitual viewing script: a passerby expects to encounter another promotional slogan, but instead faces a riddle that sells nothing and invites reflection — a moment to recall a long-cherished word. At this point, urban space ceases to be merely a backdrop for advertising and becomes a site of small-scale interactive engagement.
As in projects by other artists, working with an advertising medium disrupts the habitual viewing script: a passerby expects to encounter another promotional slogan, but instead faces a riddle that sells nothing and invites reflection — a moment to recall a long-cherished word. At this point, urban space ceases to be merely a backdrop for advertising and becomes a site of small-scale interactive engagement.
Ilya Mozgi primarily works with text. His artworks are built around concise phrases, minimalist typography, and subtle irony, where meaning often outweighs visual expression. Advertising surfaces naturally align with this language: they are environments where text traditionally dominates, and where viewers are conditioned to absorb short, quickly readable messages. This is why the city billboard becomes an ideal medium for Ilya. His artistic gesture is embedded within the structure of urban communication, yet it redirects it.
As in projects by other artists, working with an advertising medium disrupts the habitual viewing script: a passerby expects to encounter another promotional slogan, but instead faces a riddle that sells nothing and invites reflection — a moment to recall a long-cherished word. At this point, urban space ceases to be merely a backdrop for advertising and becomes a site of small-scale interactive engagement.
- Ilya MozgiArtistWhat I do in my artistic practice has been strongly influenced by my education: I studied advertising and marketing at the Faculty of Journalism at Ural Federal University. I was inspired by outdoor advertising, then worked in advertising departments and absorbed a lot from that experience. I now embed marketing approaches into my artworks. My texts can function like brand slogans or as a disruption of habitual perception, but within the urban environment, when a person expects advertising and encounters a different mood instead.
- Ilya MozgiArtistWhat I do in my artistic practice has been strongly influenced by my education: I studied advertising and marketing at the Faculty of Journalism at Ural Federal University. I was inspired by outdoor advertising, then worked in advertising departments and absorbed a lot from that experience. I now embed marketing approaches into my artworks. My texts can function like brand slogans or as a disruption of habitual perception, but within the urban environment, when a person expects advertising and encounters a different mood instead.
Each city billboard becomes a short statement — a textual fragment that does not rush to impose meaning, but instead asks the viewer to pause for a second and think. Through this play, the project breaks the automatism of reading urban advertising and transforms a familiar medium into a tool for personal reflection.
Each city billboard becomes a short statement — a textual fragment that does not rush to impose meaning, but instead asks the viewer to pause for a second and think. Through this play, the project breaks the automatism of reading urban advertising and transforms a familiar medium into a tool for personal reflection.
Author
- Ilya Mozgi (Yekaterinburg)ArtistA contemporary artist working in the field of conceptual street art. He employs stencil techniques and artistic interventions. His works are characterized by a monochrome palette, clear stencil forms, and minimalist typography, with ironic, socially charged text taking center stage, often visually referencing advertising slogans.
A contemporary artist working in the field of conceptual street art. He employs stencil techniques and artistic interventions. His works are characterized by a monochrome palette, clear stencil forms, and minimalist typography, with ironic, socially charged text taking center stage, often visually referencing advertising slogans.
The billboards was created by
Ilya Mozgi
Artist
Aleksey Shakhov
Creative Producer
Andrey Melehov
Technical Director
Maria Kochneva
Executive producer of the project
Maria Ushakova
Creative producer of the project
Polina Ej
Project Manager
Yulia Bulygina
Communications Manager
Ivan Fiev
Development Director
Anton Seleznev
Photographer
Roman Vlasov
Videographer