STATEMENT —

Lara Bongard (*1995, NL) is an interdisciplinary artist, cook and writer. Through a 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 memories, 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.

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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. Her book is part of the library collection of The MET in New York. 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).

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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)

WORK-EXPERIENCES

2025/2028 - SIT-PLU, researcher, LUCA School of Arts, Ghent (BE)
2022/ONGOING - Member of research cluster Fluid Futures, LUCA School of Arts, Ghent (BE)
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)

EVENTS & WORKSHOPS

2025 - Edible Echoes, workshop, LocHal, Tilburg (BE)
2025 - Edible Echoes, workshop, Buddy to Buddy, Breda (BE)
2024 - Murmuring Voices, Doctoral Seminar, LUCA School of Arts, Ghent (BE)
2024 - Botanical Patchworks, Doctoral Seminar, Ghent (BE)
2024 - Book presentation, ROZENSTRAAT - a rose is a rose is a rose, Amsterdam (NL)
2024 - Book launch The Girl Who Crossed the River with a Tabcloth, Kunsthal, Ghent (BE)
2023 - Book launch The Girl Who Crossed the River with a Tablecloth, Terranova, BCN (ES)
2023 - Sukkot dinner in collaboration with David Bernstein, Morpho/Extracity, Antwerp (BE)
2023 - Moving Grounds, dinner, Broei, Ghent (BE)
2023 - Food, Dyes and Storytelling, workshop, LUCA textielontwerp, Ghent (BE)
2021 - W&W: A reflexive dinner around Barcelona’s food culture, Barcelona Design Week (ES)

GROUP-SHOWS

2025 - The Scope of Stories: Tracing Vernacular Landscapes, Blanco, Ghent (BE)
2021 - De Nabije Toekomst, selection of LUCA Master graduates, De Markten, Brussels (BE)
2020 - SPREAD MAG. #02, Online Magazine Launch and Exhibition
2019 - How Soft Did You Expect This Fruit To Be?, LUCA, Ghent (BE)
2019 - Synesthesia, Gouvernement, Ghent (BE)
2018 - MOMENTUM #03, DeSingel, Antwerp (BE)

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)

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

2024 - Julia Cincinatis, El Dialogue, interview
2023 - Een draagbaar thuis, essay, Studium Generale ArtEZ
2023 - Een draagbaar thuis, essay, Mister Motley 2020 - Kunst op papier in coronatijd: Pandemie Magazine & Spread Magazine, Mister Motley
2020 - Papercult

PUBLISHED WRITING

2025 - Diana Markosian: Father, Piecing Together the Past in the Present, essay, METAL 2025 - On Viviane Sassen’s Work, Influence, and Magical Thinking, interview, METAL 2024 - De dood als voortdurende staat van verandering, essay, Mister Motley 2024 - Academy of Margins: An Experiment in Learning-with, Robida
2024 - De uitwissing van de Palestijnse aanwezigheid, planten en waterbronnen — over het werk van Sirah Foighel Brutmann en Eitan Efrat, essay, Mister Motley 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 - Tigra Tigra - Handicraft Futurism, interview, METAL

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)

2024 - The MET Library, New York

AWARDS

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

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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.