Bara was born just outside Berlin, but grew up in Guben, then on what had, since 1945, been the frontier of the German Democratic Republic with Poland. In 1980, she moved back to Berlin, and from 1980 to 1986, attended the Humboldt University of Berlin, where she studied history and art history. As a student, she was in touch with political opposition groups, including :de:Frauen für den Frieden|Frauen für den Frieden. While still at university Bara held her first exhibition at the regional :de:Kulturhaus|Public Arts House at Berlin-Treptow. In 1986 she joined the :de:Verband Bildender Künstler der DDR|East German League of Image Artists as a freelance photographer. During this time, her commissions included work on documentary films for DEFA, the state-owned film company, including :de:flüstern & SCHREIEN – Ein Rockreport|flüstern & SCHREIEN – Ein Rockreport, a major documentary project lasting three years and headed up by :de:Dieter Schumann|Dieter Schumann. In 1986, Bara started a correspondence course in photography with the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. However, this was becoming a period of increasing political instability for the German Democratic Republic and she discontinued the course in 1989 without, at this stage, receiving a qualification. Instead, in July 1989, a few months before the Berlin wall fell, she found she was able to emigrate through the "Inner frontier" and relocated to West Berlin, where she pursued a career as a freelance artist-photographer, also working on video documentaries. In 1991, she received, belatedly, a diploma with :de:Arno Fischer Arno Fischer from the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts where, since 1993, she has held a professorship in photography.
Work
Bara's self taught method of photography in which she films the female body in close range conveys a sense of societal discomfort. This was illustrated in her 1988 work, o.T. in fourteen parts. Bara's critical and political consciousness was shaped by her participation in Frauen fur den Frieden, and explored through her autobiographical photography, in which her understanding of self and the world was mirrored. She stated in 2009 that, "My female gaze arose from my biography and from my personal search for identity. A distancing feminist self-assertion was not our thing."
