If you are visiting the Smart this spring, you may be greeted at the door with a spoon.  A tradition of hospitality in Serbia, the offering of the strawberry preserve slatko is intended to sweeten your visit as well as your tongue - and it will indeed be very sweet,  as our student staff's reactions demonstrate.     

Ana Prvacki, creator of The Greeting Committee, thinks of the project not only as a gesture of welcome.  "Hospitality, and the idea of host and hostage, are etymologically very close.  You could be an overly eager host that makes the guest into a hostage.  I think there are a lot of very dark sides to hospitality."

Experience it for yourself - slatko is being served up on select days throughout the run of Feast.   

Artist Theaster Gates considers his Soul Food Pavilion to be more of an idea than a particular place: "It's the opportunity to make a space where amazing interactions can happen around the foods of black people."

As part of Feast, Gates is collaborating with chef Michael Kornick and Ericka Dudley, an expert on soul food who works with the University of Chicago's Civic Knowledge Project, as well as others to host a series of ritualized dinners at Dorchester Projects, a group of once-vacant homes in the Grand Crossing neighborhood on Chicago's South Side.

Sara Pooley captured the scene at the March 11 dinner, The Art of Soul:

That evening's menu included gumbo and conversation focused on "how we color our food -- the choice of color, intention and usefulness in food preparation, and how cooking can be viewed as an art practice."

Want to join in the soul food feast? Enter for a chance to receive an invitation to the dinners on April 15, May 6, or May 20. Guests will be chosen in part by lottery and contacted two weeks in advance.