ECAL MAP EVENTS
ECAL XMAS MARKET 2025,
17.12.2025,
ECAL, Renens
The ECAL XMas Market is back to light up your festive season, Wednesday 17 December from 6pm to 9pm at ECAL.
ECAL XMAS MARKET 2025,
OTHER
ECAL Open Day 2025,
29.11.2025,
ECAL, Renens
ECAL opens its doors and invites you to discover its activities in the fields of Fine Arts, Cinema, Industrial Design, Graphic Design, Digital Design, and Photography.
EXHIBITIONS
Dark Matter – CITY OF RENENS 2025 ENCOURAGEMENT PRIZE,
21.11–14.12.2025,
La Ferme des Tilleuls, Renens
From November 21 to December 14, Ferme des Tilleuls hosts "Dark Matter", an exhibition by Laura Cipriano and Yannick de Kalbermatten, winners of the City of Renens 2025 Encouragement Prize.
LECTURES
ECAL Conference & Performance – Parasonic,
20.11.2025,
Auditoire IKEA, ECAL
ECAL Bachelor Fine Arts invites you to a two-phase day as part of the Parasonic : the transmission of fugitive aural practices research project.
EXHIBITIONS
ECAL at Paris Photo: WARMER VISIONS,
14–24.11.2025,
Paris
Visit WARMER VISIONS at Paris Photo 2025, an exhibition inspired by Moncler's alpine heritage interpreted by ECAL Bachelor Photography students.
EXHIBITIONS
ECAL at Paris Photo: PAPERBOY ECAL,
14.11.2025,
Paris
On the occasion of Paris Photo 2025, ECAL is collaborating with Paperboy Magazine on a special issue!On the occasion of Paris Photo 2025, ECAL is collaborating with Paperboy Magazine on a special issue!
ECAL MAP EVENTS
ECAL at OFFPRINT Paris 2025,
13–16.11.2025
During Paris Photo 2025, ECAL will present a selection of its books at OFFPRINT Paris.
LECTURES
INNOVATION BY DESIGN 2025,
12.11.2025,
ECAL, Renens
Immerse yourself in innovation and design during an inspiring evening organized by the Municipality of Renens as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, on November 12 at ECAL.
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
Award for the Best Swiss Film 2025 for Marvin Merkel and Noa Epars
Congratulations to Marvin Merkel, graduate of ECAL's Bachelor Photography, and Noa Epars, winners of the 2025 Best Swiss Film Award presented by SUISSIMAGE and SSA (Société Suisse des Auteurs) at Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur.
EXHIBITIONS
RE.CHUV+ECAL,
11.11.2025–15.01.2026,
ESPACE CHUV Lausanne
VU.CH, art in hospitals, is hosting an exhibition based on the RE.CHUV+ECAL project, led by ECAL for CHUV, which proposes a concrete approach to circular design.
FINE ARTS
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Vibrations Forward
with Joël Vacheron, Angelo Benedetto, Olympe Boutaghane, Francis Baudevin
Based on archives and experiences associated with Vibrations (1991–2013), this research analyses how the magazine's textual, graphic and photographic content provides insight into the challenges of communicating about popular music today.
LECTURES
FALL WORKSHOP LECTURES,
03–12.11.2025,
Auditoire IKEA, ECAL
As part of the Bachelor program workshop weeks, ECAL will host international artists and designers from November 3 to 12, 2025, to present their work.
(Re-)Viewing Paik – 2025
with Patrick Keller, François Bovier, Erika Marthins
A comparative and practice-based study on the transformative effects at play in the digital and hybrid exhibition of a body of non-digital native artworks (some artworks by artist Nam June Paik serving as a mean of understanding).
FINE ARTS
FINE ARTS
MA CI
The Assembly of Writings
with Federico Nicolao
A collective exploration of the new relations between contemporary writing and artistic practice.
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
FIT Impact Grant 2025 for Lena Bernasconi
Congratulations to ECAL Bachelor Industrial Design graduates Lena Bernasconi, winner of the FIT Impact Grant 2025, which rewards innovative projects at the intersection of design, sustainability, and social relevance.
Design for Recycling through Automation and Robotics in Apparel Accessories and Footwear
with Maxwell Ashford
This project develops design for recycling textile-based goods, one of the most damaging waste streams, using contemporary toolsets to dismantle products into pure fractions.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Livia Schmid – Trail Sync
with Pauline Saglio, Christophe Guignard, Alain Bellet, Laura Nieder, Gaël Hugo, Lara Défayes
In remote alpine regions, access to reliable information — such as trail conditions or weather alerts — becomes difficult in the absence of network coverage. Trail Sync addresses this challenge through a participatory and decentralized approach: local information boxes, integrated into hiking infrastructure, are passively updated by hikers using an offline mobile application. Each person passing near a box synchronizes contextual data, leaving a digital trace that benefits those who follow. Reinforcing existing signage without increasing technological dependency, the system is rooted in the mountain values of collective responsibility and solidarity.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Valère Zen-Ruffinen – Memoria
with Pauline Saglio, Christophe Guignard, Alain Bellet, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Lara Défayes
“All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” - Roy Batty, Blade Runner (1982). Many of the moments we share with our loved ones fade from memory when nothing brings them back to life. Little by little, they disappear. Memoria is a photo album application that explores the fragility of memory, and how we maintain — or allow to fade — our connections through it. Through a process of gradual disappearance, the people in our photos slowly fade if no new memories shared with them are added. To keep their faces visible, users are invited to regularly enrich their album with new shared moments.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Elena Biasi – Magnetic Fragments
with Pauline Saglio, Christophe Guignard, Laura Nieder, Alain Bellet, Gaël Hugo, Lara Défayes
Before the rise of digital technology and social networks, everyday moments were captured on analog media and watched with family in one uninterrupted flow. These long VHS tapes, composed of successive sequences, gradually disappeared, victims of their obsolescence. Magnetic Fragments offers a way to rediscover these forgotten memories through a three-dimensional web interface, where each bubble represents a memory to explore and comment on. Designed for a private circle, the collaborative platform allows free navigation, revisiting each memory fragments in a dynamic way and breaking with the monotonous structure of past viewings. Magnetic Fragments thus becomes a space for intergenerational transmission, where the past is shared in the present.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Thomas Gaudin – UnBubble
with Pauline Saglio, Christophe Guignard, Alain Bellet, Gaël Hugo, Lara Défayes, Laura Nieder
Unbubble is an interactive installation in which a robot explores a user’s smartphone to analyze their Instagram usage. This intrusive act highlights a paradox: if it’s rare to hand one’s phone to a machine, we nonetheless do so every day by letting algorithms collect our data. Our online habits shape a tailor-made reality that filters, sorts, suggests, and sometimes limits our horizons. Unbubble questions how our digital traces construct a fragmented image of ourselves — one that is then used to guide our choices, desires, and attention. The installation invites us to become aware of these mechanisms and opens up a space to imagine other narratives, other ways of navigating, and other worlds to explore beyond the paths laid out by algorithms.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Alexine Sierro – Spira Memoriae
with Pauline Saglio, Christophe Guignard, Alain Bellet, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Lara Défayes
In a world where ecosystems are dying out and certain smells are evaporating, what is happening to the places and stories that gave them form? Spira Memoriae is an immersive olfactory experience in virtual reality that invites users to journey through a fragmented sensory world. Original fragrances, created in collaboration with perfumer Tennessee Macdougall, extend the reflection through the language of odours. Beacons of an abstract landscape, they reveal rare materials, sometimes extinct, but still present in our collective memory. Spira Memoriae explores the tensions between disappearance and persistence, industry and territory, reality and reconstruction. Smell becomes a vehicle for storytelling, transmission and shared fiction.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Léa Corin – Neither Fully Free, Nor Fully Captive
by Léa Corin
Neither Fully Free, Nor Fully Captive explores the theme of day parole. Through a video installation and a book, this project archives and documents the activities of an association dedicated to reintegration. The projection, conceived as an emotional archive, combines experimental videos with sound testimonies from individuals on day parole supported by the association, revealing the complexity of this transition. The book, as a complement, adopts a documentary and sensitive approach, blending stories and visual creations. This project transcends graphic form to foster social dialogue and shed light on an essential yet often overlooked issue.
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SWISS BOOKS 2024
A dozen personalities with links to the ECAL - graduates, professors or lecturers - were honoured at the "Most Beautiful Swiss Books 2024" awards
PARTNERSHIP
ECAL × micasa
HOMEWORKS: a limited collection designed by ECAL's Bachelor of Industrial Design programme for the swiss brand micasa
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
ECAL x La Becque Résidence 2025 : Jazmín López
Argentinian filmmaker and artist Jazmín López is an ECAL resident at La Becque during the fall semester.
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
AWARDS & GRANTS 2025
The graduation ceremony held on 27 June 2025 was also an opportunity to highlight many diploma projects through the awarding of Grants and Prizes. Congratulations to all the graduates and award winners!
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
Two ECAL photographers honoured with the Dior Prize for Photography 2025
Sara de Brito Faustino and Aline Savioz, respectively a graduate and student of the Bachelor's programme in Photography at ECAL, are among the winners of the 2025 edition of the prestigious Dior Prize for Photography and Visual Arts for Young Talents.
PARTNERSHIP
ECAL label for the Vaud Parliament wine
To celebrate the collaboration between the three branches of government, the Vaud Parliament is unveiling its very first vintage wine – adorned with a label designed by ECAL.
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
Of the 28 ECAL graduates who were finalists for the 2025 Swiss Design Awards, 13 received awards
Following the nomination of 28 of its graduates as finalists for the Swiss Design Awards 2025, ECAL is proud to announce that 13 have been awarded this prestigious distinction by the Federal Office of Culture. This strong representation once again demonstrates the quality and diversity of the talent trained at the university
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
A Graduation Film Selected at Annecy Animation Film Festival 2025
The animated short film Qui part à la chasse by ECAL graduate Léa Favre has been selected for the official competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
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