Novakov's work is about collecting and archiving gastronomic and olfactory memories. As an immigrant from a No-Longer-Existent (NLE) country, she is interested in the residual smells and tastes of home – the Yugoslavia of her childhood. Her solo projects, include Red Leather an aural play that melds olfactory memories of her childhood in 1960s Belgrade with music and news clips of the decade. The one-hour performance, which is presented in a darkened room, asks viewers to breathe in the scents of the past – a process of mining olfactory memories. The scent score is a composition that includes the live mixing of scents, the tastes of regional food and drink and the tactile qualities of associative textiles (such as leather and wool). Red Leather will premiere on October 17th at Liebig 12 (Berlin). In her collaborative work, including Balkanalia, she aims to bring together people from various NLE Socialist countries (Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia) in communal kitchens where they can exchange recipes, source materials, prepare and share meals and remembrances. This form of social gastronomy is intended to be a process of personal reunification, a geographic mapping of the spaces of embodied Utopian nostalgia.