Art of gratitude
On November 13, a Monday forum by alumna Aneesah Ettress Veatch, Academic Engagement Coordinator at the Smart Museum of Art, focused on the art of gratitude--figurative and literal. She led a close-looking exercise on a work by Theaster Gates, Soul Food Starter Kit. The work, a wooden hutch filled with stoneware plates, bowls, and serving pieces, also includes a poem, "Soul Manifesto #2." Gates accompanied the work with a series of dining experiences which provoked "questions about the relationship between objects and ritual, between gratitude and food... about their own cultural values and their own cultural utensils." Every aspect of the work considers sharing food and community as central to gratitude. Her program was paired with a soul food Monday night dinner from the South-side institution, Pearl's Place.