Denise Lara Margules

Denise Lara Margules’ artistic practice involves and intertwines the creation of documentary film and video, embroidery-based installations and cooking. She studied filmmaking at Universidad del Cine, and attended workshops by Martín Rejtman, Andrés Di Tella and Matías Piñeiro (Universidad Di Tella), Juan Campanella and Werner Herzog (EICTV, Cuba). At the same time and after years of cooking with her female relatives, she became a professional cook at IAG, Gato Dumas’ school and with Pamela Villar. Since 2014, she studies embroidery with Guillermina Baiguera. Her short films were presented at BAFICI (14), MALBA, Festival Internacional de Cine de Cali (FICCALI) and Family Fiction Film Project, Portugal. In 2017, she was artist-in-residence at Casa Xitla, Ciudad de Mexico.

Either jointly or separately exercised, Margules’ filmmaking, embroidery and cooking practices have always been inspired by family stories. She has a passion for working craftily on family archives: she believes these stories make up the only things she can know about assertively — mistrusting them at the same time as they come from second-hand sources. She has the feeling that this archaeology of found footage, though highly individual, interlaces through its repetition a universal history of families. Recently, her work in collaboration has expanded her scope of interest beyond her family, by applying her particular ways of operating towards gaining insight into specific groups of people: particularly, cultural organizations.