A giant globe covered in large postage stamps was not a typical sight to visitors at the Chicago Botanic Garden on Saturday.
It actually isn’t a globe at all; it’s an interactive art piece created by Italian street artist Greg Goya.
Goya, a street artist with a large social media following (1.3 million on Instagram), is creating art for the first time in the United States, bringing “La Stagione Dell’amore,” which translates to The Season of Love, to the Chicago Botanic Garden.
Goya says he creates “fast art,” and on Saturday afternoon, May 10, he revealed his first of three art installations, titled “Home is Where I’m With You,” to visitors after painting the phrase, “Where Do You Truly Feel at Home?” on it.
He then invited guests to answer that very question by writing on the artwork.
“This is a big, big globe filled with stamps, so you can go choose your stamp and answer, Where do you truly feel at home?” Goya said the crowd surrounding the art.
He added that there is no right answer to that question, and it can be interpreted several ways.
“(Home) is not only a physical place, but also an emotional place,” he said. “So you can say Chicago, but you can also say with my family, with my girlfriend.”
Goya said he wanted everyone to “transform this artwork” and leave “an emotional moment all together, and one by one, answering the question.”
Speaking with The Record, Goya said he wanted to create a piece that celebrated love.
“We are here in the botanic garden, we are surrounded by nature, and I wanted to create a comparison between nature and love,” he said.
He decided to create his first art in America at the Chicago Botanic Garden after a visit two months ago.
“They showed me this stunning place,” he said. “I was super inspired by the nature, by the place. I feel at home here, so I started doing this artwork.”
Goya said he didn’t have any expectations for how the public would respond to his art, but he found it inspiring to see how many people were waiting in line to add their answers to “Home is Where I’m With You.”
“Art and love are universal, so I think that people from all around the world share the same emotion,” he said. “And it’s very beautiful to see people sharing love with my art.”
Goya will appear two more times at the Chicago Botanic Garden this month, creating interactive art pieces on Wednesday, May 14, and Saturday, May 17. Both performances start at 3 p.m.
The art pieces will continue to be on display through September at the Greenhouse Gallery, where visitors will be allowed to continue interacting with them.
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