LARA BONGARD

Storytelling, textiles and food

Projects —


Journal


Publications —


Published Writing

Commissioned

About —

There is beauty to be found in embracing the multiplicity of stories that constitute my identity. The essence of home is portable and fluid — always growing and adapting, fusing and mingling with different times, places and people, expressing itself in new forms and stories.

For commissions, exhibitions or collaborations please contact me — 

larabongard@gmail.com
Instagram


© 2023 Lara Bongard, all rights reserved
Mark

STATEMENT —

Lara Bongard (*1995, NL) is a multi-disciplinary artist, cook and writer. Through a multi-disciplinary practice that moves in-between creative writing, cooking, photography, textile design and publishing, her work illuminates hidden stories of cultural erasure and ‘placeless’ migratory identities. Exploring the feeling of belonging nowhere and everywhere, at the same time. Via transhistorical research — working with archives, historical sources, ancestral stories, mythology and tales — she merges and fuses ancient narratives and symbolisms to create new stories, images and rituals.

Lara’s work aims to challenge our relationship to the past and acknowledge the multiplicity of stories and histories that constitute our identity. By seeing ourselves and each other in our plurality, we can move beyond a singular perception of a person or a culture, and start building bridges. Through reimagining the past, present and future, while working with personal stories as connecting factors, she creates spaces where people can look at the meaning of being uprooted and feeling at home from new perspectives. Lara uses colour in a tactile language of word and image to touch on delicate issues, break stigmas and weave together connections.


BIO —


Lara Bongard holds a BA and MA in Visual Arts from LUCA School of Arts in Ghent, Belgium. Next to her practice, Lara works both in creative direction and food-design, as well as writing for various publications like METAL and MOLD magazine. She is co-editor of SPREAD MAG. A young editorial collective who publishes undiscovered creative talents in a biannual magazine. Lara organises food events, self-publishes magazines and books and has participated in various group and solo shows.  



CV —



EDUCATION


2019/2020 - MA Visual Arts, LUCA School of Arts, Ghent (BE), graduated with the highest distinction
2018/2019 - Third year of BA Mixed Media, LUCA School of Arts, Ghent (BE), graduated with honours
2017 - Erasmus exchange, BA Textile Design, LUCA School of Arts, Ghent (BE)
2015/2018 - BA Visual Arts, AKV St. Joost, Den Bosch (NL)
2014/2015 - First year of BA Allround Styling and Design, Academie Artemis, Amsterdam (NL)
2014 - Preparation course Design at ECA, Edinburgh (UK)


GROUP-SHOWS & EVENTS


2021 - Barcelona Food Design Week, ‘Privilige of Fake Abundance’, collaboration with Nicole Vindel (ES)
2021 - Wine & Wonder: a dinner around Barcelona’s food culture, Barcelona Food Design Week (ES)
2021 - Selection of LUCA Master graduates, de Markten, Brussels (BE)
2020 - SPREAD MAG. #02, Online Magazine Launch & Exhibition
2019 - How Soft Did You Expect This Fruit To Be?, Ghent (BE)
2019 - Synesthesia, Gouvernement, Ghent (BE)
2018 - MOMENTUM #03, DeSingel, Antwerp (BE)
2018 - Stemgeluid, Stokvishallen, Breda (NL)
2016 - Makeba, AKV St. Joost, Den Bosch (NL)


SOLO SHOWS


2022 - The Girl Who Crossed the River with a Tablecloth, LJG, Amsterdam (NL)
2023/UPCOMING - The Girl Who Crossed the River with a Tablecloth, Jewish Museum, Amsterdam (NL)


WORK-EXPERIENCE


2023 - Academy of Margins Summer School 2023, Robida Collective, Topolò/Topolove (IT)
2023 - Participant (online) Oxford Food Symposium 2013 ‘Food Rules & Rituals’
2023 - Volunteer at Foodculture Days Biennial, Vevey (CH)
2021/2022 - Editor SPREAD MAG.
2021/2022  Food design assistant, Studio Nicole Vindel (ES)
2021 - Art assistant, Studio Olga de la Iglesia, Barcelona (ES)
2021 - Residency for one month at farm-to-table restaurant Cascina Lago Scuro, Cremona (IT)
2021 - Content writer, METAL magazine, Barcelona (ES)
2020 - Storytelling Course, The Mezrab Storytelling School, Amsterdam (NL)
2019 - Residency for one month at L’Ane Vert, Tadedna (MA)


PUBLICATIONS


2023/UPCOMING - The Girl Who Crossed the River with a Tablecloth (Art Paper Editions)
2022 - SPREAD MAG. Issue 5, Movement.
2020 - The Girl Who Crossed the River with a Tablecloth 
2020 - SPREAD MAG. Issue 2, Disguise.
2019 - The In-between Place (self-published)
2019 - A Placeless Journal (self-published)


PRESS


2020 - Kunst op papier in coronatijd: Pandemie Magazine & Spread Magazine, Mister Motley (NL)
2020 - Papercult


PUBLISHED WRITING


2021 - Pasta Madre as Pretext for Exploration, interview, MOLD
2021 - Klaas Rommelaere - Stitching Together Life, Love and Memory, METAL
2021 - Lisa Konno - Fashion as Carrier of Stories, interview, METAL                  
2021 - Alex Dodge - Distorting Reality, interview, METAL                                    
2021 - Sofia Salazar - The Beauty of the In-between, interview, METAL           
2021 - Tigra Tigra - Handicraft Futurism, interview, METAL


ART-DIRECTION


2022 - About Arianne, A Portal to Dreams, SS22
2021 - Olga de la Iglesia, New Romantics         


ARTIST TALKS & TEACHING


2023 - Guest lecture: Anthropology of Art, LUCA, Ghent (BE)
2023 - Workshop Food, Dyes and Storytelling, LUCA Textile Design, Ghent (BE)
2022 - Guest lecture, ELISAVA, Barcelona (ES)

AWARDS


2020 ‘Scriptieprijs’ Sint-Lucas, LUCA School of Arts, Ghent (BE)


What I’m reading and listening to —


  1. Alice Waters, We Are What We Eat: A Slow Food Manifesto, Penguin Press, 2021.
  2. Dan Barber, The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food, Penguin Books, 2014.
  3. Hirsch, M. (2012). The generation of postmemory: writing and visual culture after the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press.
  4. Sholem Aleichem, Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor’s Son (1912).
  5. Zygmunt Bauman, “From Pilgrim to Tourist” (1996), in: Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, Questions of Cultural Identity, SAGE Publications, London, 1996, p. 18-36.
  6. Celeste Olalquiaga, “Dust” in: Brian Dillon, Ruins, p. 32-33.
  7. Fania Lewando, The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook (1938), translated from Yiddish by Eve Jochnowitz, Schocken Books, New York, 2015.
  8. David G. Roskies, A Bridge of Longing: Lost Art of Yiddish Storytelling, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 1995.
  9. W.G. Sebald, The Emigrants (1992), translated from German by Michael Hulse, New Directions Publishing Corporation, New York, 2016.
  10. Isaac Bashevis Singer, Collected Stories (1953), Penguin Books Ltd, London, 2011.
  11. Amos Funkenstein, Collective Memory and Historical Consciousness, 1989, Indiana University Press, History and Memory, Vol. 1, No. 1., p. 5-26. 
  12. Mekhitar Garabedian, I am merely the place, 2013, Critical Arts: A South-North Journal of Cultural & Media Studies, Vol. 27 Issue 5, p. 606-626. 
  13. Tim Ingold, The Temporality of the Landscape, 1993, World Archaeology, Vol. 25, No. 2, Conceptions of Time and Ancient Society, p. 152–174.