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 our identities. 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 in creative direction, having worked with About Arianne, Olga de la Iglesia, and Nicole Vindel. She writes for various publications about food, art, fashion, and culture, such as METAL, MOLD, and Mister Motley. Since 2022, she is part of the research-cluster Fluid Futures which focusses on situated artistic research to create new post-anthropocentric narratives in correspondence with the multiplicity of today’s world.

Winner of the 2020 LUCA School of Arts thesis and jury prize. She launched her debut book The Girl Who Crossed the River with a Tablecloth in October 2023, published by Art Paper Editions. The book is presented at Kunsthal in Ghent, Terranova in Barcelona, and ROZENSTRAAT - a rose is a rose is a rose in Amsterdam. Bongard had solo exhibitions at LJG (2021) and the Jewish Museum in Amsterdam (2023). Her work is included in the Dutch government’s National Rijkscollectie (2024).


CV —



EDUCATION


2020 - MA Visual Arts, LUCA School of Arts, Ghent (BE)
2019 - Third year of BA Mixed Media, LUCA School of Arts, Ghent (BE)
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


2024/UPCOMING - Book launch ‘The Girl Who Crossed the River with a Tablecloth’, ROZENSTRAAT - a rose is a rose is a rose, Amsterdam (NL)
2024/UPCOMING - Book launch ‘The Girl Who Crossed the River with a Tablecloth’, Kunsthal Ghent (BE)

2023 - Book launch The Girl Who Crossed the River with a Tablecloth, Terranova, Barcelona (ES)
2023 -  Sukkot dinner in collaboration with David Bernstein, Morpho, Antwerp (BE)
2023 -  Moving Grounds dinner, Broei, Ghent (BE) 2023 - Food, Dyes and Storytelling, workshop, LUCA textielontwerp, Ghent (BE)
 2021 - Barcelona Food Design Week, ‘Privilege of Fake Abundance’, collaboration with Nicole Vindel (ES)
2021 - Wine & Wonder: a dinner around Barcelona’s food culture, Barcelona 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


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



WORK-EXPERIENCES


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 - Content writer, METAL magazine, Barcelona (ES)
2020 - Storytelling Course, The Mezrab Storytelling School, Amsterdam (NL)


RESIDENCIES


2023 - Casa Balandra, Portòl (ES) 2023 - Academy of Margins Summer School 2023, Robida Collective, Topolò/Topolove (IT)
2023 - The Green Corridor, Brussels (BE)
2021 - Cascina Lago Scuro, Cremona (IT)
2019 - L’Ane Vert, Tadedna (MA)



PUBLICATIONS


2023 - 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 (Master thesis)
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
2020 - Papercult



PUBLISHED WRITING


2023 - Een draagbaar thuis, essay, Studium Generale ArtEZ
2023 - Een draagbaar thuis, essay, Mister Motley
2022 - SPREAD MAG. Issue 5, MOVEMENT 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 
2021 - Nicole Vindel, Privilege of Fake Abundance


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)



COLLECTIONS


2024 - Collectie Rijksoverheid (NL)



AWARDS


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