LARA BONGARD


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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
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© 2025 Lara Bongard, all rights reserved
Mark

Murmuring Voices: The Communal Oven

The seminar Murmuring Voices was a public sharing day of the Fluid Futures research cluster at the LUCA Ter Beken Campus, where we collectively explored decolonial, embodied, and environmental histories through presentations, cooking, and interactive sessions. During the day we engaged with the often-silenced presences of Ter Beken: the hidden currents beneath the soil, the forgotten plants, and reacted and worked with the ‘archive of research gestures’ built over the past year with Fluid Futures.

The Fluid Futures members led sensory embodied sessions around Ter Beken’s green spaces: an environmental dialogue in the old landscape park guided by Breg Horemans, an intervention in the dye garden around the alkanet and St John's wort by Annelotte Lammertse and Anna Püschel, and a lunch performance around the collective oven by Lara Bongard. 



The communal oven was once a staple in nearly every European village, much like the town mill. It served as a gathering point where the community came together weekly to bake their bread, exchange news, discuss politics, or simply socialize while waiting for their loaves to bake. To distinguish their bread, each person marked their dough with unique cuts, metal tallies, or strings. The communal oven stood as a powerful symbol of community, resilience, and the strength of collective effort.

Today, communal ovens remain prevalent in many places in the world. In much of the West, however, the tradition began to fade after World War II, as efficiency replaced slow, shared practices, and individualism took precedence over communal ties. As our societies grow more polarised, the revival of the communal oven could offer more than just fresh bread—it could reignite a sense of togetherness and create space for a multiplicity of stories to be shared.

Seminar, 2024
Photos by Noé Cottencin
Mark