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 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.
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.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
with Aurèle Sack
The third-year students had to develop a typeface and digitize it.
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.
PHOTOGRAPHY
with Rineke Dijkstra
What is good portrait? What technique do you choose? What kind of light do you use? Daylight or flash? What location or backdrop do you choose for? How do you choose your subject? How do you approach someone you don’t know? In this workshop, the students have explored what makes a good portrait and which tools you can use to create one.
PARTNERSHIP
Mazda and ECAL renew their partnership and place design and craftsmanship at the heart of innovation in the electric era.
DIGITAL EXPERIENCE DESIGN
with Irene Pereyra
Ethical, Accessible & Mindful Design is a one-week module that trains students to examine the ethical dimensions of design decisions. Through practice, students learn to design experiences that are inclusive, transparent, and considerate of their broader social impact. This semester, the module took low-vision accessibility as its central design constraint. Working under the brief Goodbye to All …, students were asked to guide a user through a permanent, irreversible, and non-negotiable farewell. Beyond WCAG compliance, the exercise required sustained attention to contrast across all interface states, legible typography, keyboard-only navigation, focus visibility, and layout integrity at both 100% and 300% zoom, without loss of hierarchy or readability.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
with Guy Meldem
Third-year students had to produce an edition over half a semester, discovering as their subject an event that appeared in the newspaper on the date of the first lesson.
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.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with David Liebermann, Maximilian Kiepe, Jana Reddemann
Hello World! Goodbye predictable, standardized and interchangeable web. Students questioned the conventions of the digital World, explored the Wide possibilities of the medium, and even invented new approaches to interact with the Web. And what better way to give web design meaning than through the students own portfolios, understood as expressions of attitude and personality. https://websites.ecal-mid.ch/
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.
with Benoit Rossel
This research project by the Film Department at ECAL aims to assess the impact of artificial intelligence on cinema and film education.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Mélanie Courtinat
Ce workshop explore la paréidolie, notre capacité à projeter du sens et des émotions sur des formes abstraites. À partir d'une primitive géométrique (cube, sphère, cône...), matrice fondamentale de tout univers numérique, les étudiant·e·s en binômes doivent concevoir une expérience en réalité virtuelle. En s'appuyant sur une synchronisation précise entre l'espace physique et un environnement Unreal Engine, le projet transforme ces objets fixes en supports narratifs.
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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