OTHER
Dedicated to young graduates and professionals alike, the “ECAL Talent Day” event aims to build bridges between academia and the professional world by offering the opportunity to meet and network.
EXHIBITIONS
For its fourth stop, the exhibition ECAL A Typographic Atlas is presented in New York by The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography.
PHOTOGRAPHY
with Natacha Lesueur
Documentary, the power of make-believe Based on projects developed around a common theme, the students develop a personal, in-depth project around the theme of pretense. They build a project that plays with the limits of veracity in photography, using it as an artifice of deception.
PHOTOGRAPHY
with Natacha Lesueur
Off-camera By exploring what lies outside the frame, students develop a sensitive and reflective approach to audiovisual creation. Throughout the semester, students are encouraged to reflect on the political and formal issues surrounding the moving image, as well as the relationship between the visible and the invisible.
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
Congratulations to Lea Favre, graduate of the Bachelor Cinema, whose film Hunting was selected by the César Academy for the 2026 Nuits en Or.
PHOTOGRAPHY
with Charlotte Krieger
Unseen This course introduces students to the creation of a seven-image series built around the theme Unseen. They will learn to combine set design, characters, and lighting to produce strong, coherent staged images. Through a practical and technical approach, the course develops their ability to conceive and manage a complete photographic project, direct models, work with natural and artificial light, and collaborate under conditions similar to professional editorial or commercial shoots. Students will refine their photographic vision while preparing for the creative and technical demands of the industry.
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
Following the nomination of 16 of its graduates as finalists for the Swiss Design Awards 2025, ECAL is proud to announce that 8 have been awarded this prestigious distinction by the Federal Office of Culture.
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
Congratulations to Iulia Bucuresteanu, ECAL Master Fine Arts student, for winning the Kiefer Hablitzel Göhner Art Prize.
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
Congratulations to Ange-Frédéric Koffi, an ECAL Master Fine Arts graduate, on receiving an Emergence Grant from the Association for the International Promotion of French Art.
PRODUCT DESIGN
by Omar Bassil
Esplanade is an exploration of how a flat-cut piece of leather can be transformed into a slip-on shoe through folding, wrapping, gathering, and minimal joining using simple tools. Stripping leather shoemaking down to its essentials, form emerges through tension and wear. Referencing the carbatina, a Roman shoe typology constructed from a single piece of leather, the design adapts its pattern principle to a contemporary slip-on. While the construction is reduced to a few essential operations, the making process still relies on the expertise of leather workers and techniques specific to their craft. This approach yields a simple, relaxed, and enduring object as a reflection on craftsmanship and material honesty.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Charlotte Waridel
Bloom is an interactive installation that delves into the opaque reality of nickel mining, a cornerstone of the energy transition. In 1975, biologist Alan Baker discovered, in an open-pit mine, a plant whose leaves contain nickel concentrations a thousand times higher than normal, Noccaea caerulescens. He published his findings, which went unnoticed. Today, the mining industry has taken an interest in these hyperaccumulator plants and is developing phytomining as an alternative to conventional extraction methods. Bloom explores the duality between scientific reality and a pro-industry narrative that presents it as tomorrow's green solution, navigating between the extraordinary adaptation of these plants to their environment and the mechanisms of greenwashing.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Jonathan Vögele
Siphonophores is an immersive experience in which two participants learn to share a single virtual body. The siphonophore, this marine animal that seems to be but a single gelatinous creature, is in fact a colony of organisms. We too, who believe ourselves separate, are already multiplicities and together we form bodies vaster still. Linked by a device that captures and synchronizes their movements, the participants feel their gestures seek one another out, meet, and at times work against each other. An arm rises without our quite knowing who willed it. How far can we feel ourselves extended, displaced, shared?
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Dalia Spichtig
Breaking the Narrative is an interactive educational web documentary exploring manosphere narratives. Structured in three parts, it examines the three media formats most used by these communities: video, text, and audio, to analyze their communication and dissemination strategies. Through playful interactions, the project raises awareness of the persuasive mechanisms used by the manosphere while exposing the systemic and ideological realities these narratives often conceal. Aimed primarily at young boys, as well as parents, guardians, and educators, Breaking the Narrative provides tools for understanding, critical analysis, and education around these contemporary issues.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Daniel Rocha
In this video game, the user plays as a support agent at HOMAZON, whose mission is to ensure a family's comfort in their smart home. Every action is designed to make the family's daily life simpler, more convenient, and more comfortable. Throughout the game, the player performs actions that seem at first glance harmless. Yet they ultimately tell a different story. Behind these actions, the smart devices have in fact collected a wealth of data on the family's lifestyle. HOMAZON does not seek to reveal the existence of data collection, a reality already known to the general public, but aims to raise awareness among teenagers and young adults about what is really happening behind the use of smart devices, which appear harmless and convenient.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Yann Müller
As cities light up, the night fades from our sight. Trame Noire is a night-exploration mobile app designed to raise public awareness about the impacts of light pollution on the wildlife and flora that come alive at dusk. Combining immersive experience and citizen science, the project offers a new way to observe and understand our coexistence with the living world. Guided by the seasons and natural cycles, the app invites users to explore the urban environment and capture, from one location to the next, the unique light footprint of each space. Through these explorations, Trame Noire maps a sensitive geography of the dark, bringing to light how artificial illumination alters the behavior of nocturnal life.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Shana Meinecke
While women make up half of all gamers in Europe, they account for only 7% of participants in esports competitions. The VR project "She Kept Playing" explores the causes of this disparity. Although esports is a relatively young sector, gender stereotypes and misogyny remain. By listening to short stories based on testimonials from professional female gamers, participants directly discover the systemic obstacles these women face. Carried by influential players like Kayane and Loupiote, they serve as powerful role models for the next generation, empowering female gamers to carve out a place in the field without having to worry about gender bias.
LECTURES
As part of the "No Sound: Sound Reflection" class of the Fine Arts Bachelor, students present an evening of concerts, performances and talks.
EXHIBITIONS
For the Design Days 2026, ECAL presents a selection of projects from its collaboration with Cristallina Design, focusing on a rare material: the only marble quarried in Switzerland.
EXHIBITIONS
For the 2026 Festival des Cabanes, ECAL is presenting an installation in collaboration with Mutina and French designer Ronan Bouroullec.
EXHIBITIONS
As part of the presentation of ECAL A Typographic Atlas at Program/me, the launch of the exhibition's book, as well as a conference with typographers, teachers, researchers, and publishers, will also take place.
PARTNERSHIP
Mazda and ECAL renew their partnership and place design and craftsmanship at the heart of innovation in the electric era.
ANNOUNCEMENT
At the 61st Venice Biennale, the Swiss Pavilion presents The Unfinished Business of Living Together, an exhibition conceived by a collective that includes Yul Tomatala, a graduate of ECAL’s Bachelor’s program in Photography, and Miriam Laura Leonardi, a faculty member in the Bachelor’s program in Visual Arts.
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
Congratulations to Marvin Merkel, graduate of ECAL's Bachelor Photography, and Noa Epars on the selection of their film Always Wanted to Be God, Never Wanted to Do Good for the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.
ANNOUNCEMENT
In keeping with the legacy of Milo Keller, whose passing deeply affected the school, Calypso Mahieu and Clément Lambelet have been appointed to lead ECAL’s Photography programmes.
ANNOUNCEMENT
After over than ten years as head of the Bachelor Industrial Design, Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard will hand over responsibility for the program to Camille Blin, director of the Master Product Design program.
LECTURES
On the occasion of the Swiss release of his latest feature film, Dao, the Cinema Department at ECAL is hosting French-Senegalese director Alain Gomis for a masterclass.
EXHIBITIONS
On the occasion of the Mapping Festival 2026, ECAL presents the ECAL 360 LAB for the third consecutive year.
LECTURES
This two-day symposium is part of a research project by the Cinema Department at ECAL focusing on the impact of artificial intelligence on cinema.
LECTURES
As part of the Parasonic : the transmission of fugitive aural practices research project, ECAL’s Fine Arts Bachelor proposes two public events.
ANNOUNCEMENT
From April 15 to July 4, 2026, the artist Romane de Watteville, a Bachelor Fine Arts graduate, presents the exhibition I'll miss you when I scroll away at the Istituto Svizzero in Milan.
Learn more about projects and activities
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