OTHER
Dedicated to young graduates and professionals alike, the “ECAL Talent Day” event aims to build bridges between training and working life by offering the opportunity to forge links.
EXHIBITIONS
Three ECAL projects are being exhibited at the 13th edition of the Saint-Étienne International Design Biennial
EXHIBITIONS
Pipistrelles, Serotines, and Bachelor Fine Arts students gather at Cinéma Bellevaux for an evening of performances, screenings, and sounds emerging from the invisible.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Harriet Davey
Second-year students, led by Harriet Davey, crafted digital alter egos from scratch. They used Daz, Blender, and VR to explore identity, gender, and aesthetics in virtual space.
LECTURES
ECAL welcomes Dutch photographer Rineke Dijkstra for a talk on her contemporary approach to portraiture.
PHOTOGRAPHY
with Jaya Pelupessy
This exhibition presents the outcome of a five-day workshop led by artist Jaya Pelupessy, where students explored the unstable terrain between creation and reproduction. Through hands-on experiments with various duplication methods and strategies of appropriation, the workshop invited a reconsideration of the image—not as a final product, but as a process, a question, a site of continuous transformation. Embracing moments of uncertainty, trial and error, and unexpected discovery, participants focused on what Pelupessy calls The Indecisive Moment: the in-between phase where outcomes are unclear and intention is disrupted by chance. These works reflect a shift from the pursuit of fixed meaning toward an image in flux—unfinished, open, and relational.
PRODUCT DESIGN
with Philippe Malouin
SolarPunk is a design exploration into how increasingly accessible solar energy might shape and integrate into our everyday lives in the near future. Embracing a hopeful vision of sustainability, the movement challenges traditional perceptions of renewable energy by imagining creative, aesthetic, and functional uses of solar power. This collection of work was created by first-year Master’s students in Product Design at ECAL, under the guidance of designer Philippe Malouin. Developed specifically for the Soleil·s exhibition at the MUDAC design museum in Lausanne, the projects reflect bold experimentation and speculative thinking. Rather than focusing solely on efficiency or utility, the students explored poetic, playful, and sometimes unconventional applications of solar energy, highlighting the emotional and experiential potential of this technology. Among the featured works are two standout projects which have been developed and feature in the exhibition: ‘Solar Shade' by Carl Johan Jacobsen, a wearable hat that powers a cooling vest using flexible solar panels, and ‘Butterfly Sunglasses’ by Takumi Ise, simple lightweight eyewear that combines colour, movement, and solar functionality.
LECTURES
ECAL, in collaboration with the Cinémathèque Suisse and Sister Distribution, welcomes filmmaker Albert Serra for a talk.
FINE ARTS
Une semaine focalisée sur la spéculations et les nouvelles histoires déclenchées principalement par la matière avec l'artiste Una Szeemann. Les étudiant.exs ont orienté leurs réflexions sur le pouvoir des objets, du point de vue de l'art, du fétichisme, de l'object oriented ontology, de la psychanalyse et de la magie…
LECTURES
During the spring semester workshop week, ECAL invites international artists and designers to present their work.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Pauline Saglio
Folklore Fusion – a CGI character project developed by students in Bachelor Media & Interaction Design at ECAL, exploring the creative collision between Japanese and Swiss folklore through the lens of contemporary visual storytelling.
PARTNERSHIP
HUG: ECAL's Swiss chair for the World Expo 2025 in Osaka from 13 April to 13 October 2025.
EXHIBITIONS
HUM HUM MAGAZINE, created by ECAL students, is a nomadic exhibition-publication whose first issue unfolds at Treize.
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
ECAL is delighted to announce that 28 of its graduates are among the finalists for the 2025 Swiss Design Awards, a prestigious distinction awarded by the Federal Office of Culture. This selection is further testament to the quality and diversity of the talent trained at the university.
ONLINE
This event is open to future candidates for the new Master in Digital Experience Design who wish to obtain a preliminary opinion on their application.
EXHIBITIONS
ECAL in collaboration with Karimoku New Standard and Presence Switzerland presents Designed in CH, Made in Japan at Milan Design Week 2025
EXHIBITIONS
Selection of exhibitions with ECAL graduates at Milan Design Week 2025.
PHOTOGRAPHY
with Matthieu Gafsou
New transport infrastructure is emerging, while former industrial wastelands are giving way to modern buildings and redesigned outdoor spaces. Gradually, residents are moving into these new neighborhoods and adopting new habits. To capture the first moments of life in these spaces, the association "Ouest lausannois: Prix Wakker 2011" has invited second-year students from the ECAL Bachelor of Photography program to observe them throughout 2024. This project highlights 18 ongoing construction sites or recently completed neighborhoods. Through their perspectives, the students offer original approaches to discovering, understanding, and appropriating these new spaces. Photography maintains a unique relationship with the world around us, as it often depends on it. Far from merely documenting reality in a strict sense, it has the power to transfigure and reveal the invisible or the unspeakable. This is the approach adopted by the ECAL photography students at the request of the "Ouest lausannois: Prix Wakker 2011" association, as they explored various territories in western Lausanne. As part of this commission, each student was randomly assigned a specific location—be it a new neighborhood, a construction site, or a distinctive building—on which they worked over an academic year. Faced with spaces that were sometimes unphotogenic or even resistant to imagery, the challenge was to look beyond appearances, to resonate with these places in order to grasp their unique dynamics. The photographs question our perception of these recent landscapes and bear witness to the human activity unfolding within them. What do they reveal about our ways of living and moving? Who are the people inhabiting these spaces? What new landscapes emerge from these rapid transformations? Through approaches that are sometimes sensitive and intimate, sometimes detached and analytical, or even driven by a formal fascination with the objects captured, the works presented reveal the density and diversity of everyday life. They bring forth a poetic vision of the city, inviting us to consider these territories not merely as functional backdrops but as fully-fledged spaces, rich with history, form, and identity—fluid and multifaceted, just like those who inhabit them.
DESIGN FOR LUXURY & CRAFTSMANSHIP
At the invitation of Watches and Wonders Geneva, ECAL will present a brand-new project in partnership with Ceramaret, a leading Swiss company in the manufacture and high-precision machining of technical ceramics. To mark the occasion, a selection of five jewellery and bracelet designs will be on display at the LAB, a venue dedicated to innovation and design. Thanks to this first collaboration with the Neuchâtel-based manufacturer, students in MAS Design for Luxury and Craftsmanship got to discover a state-of-the-art machine park. Renowned for developing and producing components for the luxury watchmaking industry, Ceramaret’s teams contributed their expertise to this ambitious research. Combining innovation with creativity, the project brings together the know-how of specialised engineers in materials science and the boundless inventiveness of an up-and-coming generation of designers. Following the presentation of the students’ 15 concepts, five designs were selected and prototyped in technical ceramics, using additive technologies – a 3D printing process that provides the possibility to create intricate, previously unimaginable shapes. This collection, including bracelets inspired by fine watchmaking and innovative jewellery designs, draws its inspiration as much from the beauty of organic forms as from the complexity of systems derived from engineering.
PRODUCT DESIGN
with Augustin Scott de Martinville
Designed in CH, Made in JP is a collaborative project between ECAL Master Product Design, Karimoku New Standard, and Presence Switzerland. From 13 April to 13 October 2025, representatives from countries across the globe will gather to showcase innovation, culture, and sustainability at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan. For Switzerland’s pavilion, MA Product Design students at ECAL were tasked with designing a stackable wooden chair to be produced in Japan by Karimoku New Standard, intended to furnish the lightweight, bubble-inspired architecture by Manuel Herz. Under the guidance of Augustin Scott de Martinville, the class developed ten chair designs, each offering a distinct perspective. Some draw inspiration from the pavilion’s scenography, while others explore cultural iconography or celebrate the symbiosis between two nations—each unique in heritage yet united by shared values of craftsmanship and innovation. Of the ten designs, one was selected to be produced for the pavilion: HUG, designed by Jacob Kouthoofd Martensson and Min Xiyao, is a circular chair that stacks inversely—a feature that not only informs its name but also visually embodies the essence of collaboration. This versatile design accommodates a range of uses, from conferences to general pavilion seating. The final chair will be unveiled both in Osaka in the Swiss Pavilion at the World Expo 2025, and during Milan Design Week 2025, with the full project exhibited at the House of Switzerland.
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
Klaudia Reynicke and Mégane Brügger win the ‘Best Feature Film’ and ‘Best Graduation Film’ awards respectively.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
PHOTOGRAPHY
with Vincent Veillon, Paul Walther, Florian Pittet (Sigmasix), Vincent Jacquier, Julien Gurtner
During an intensive week, first-year students from the Visual Communication department at ECAL had the opportunity to create and produce the first edition of ECAL Night Live. The goal was to design a show inspired by satirical television formats. Divided into multidisciplinary teams—including students from the Bachelor programs in Graphic Design, Media & Interaction Design, and Photography—they collaborated to create all the content, set design, and visual identity of the show, delivering a fully homemade project in record time. The main theme revolved around self-mockery, targeting the visual communication professions, students, and the institution itself, with a subtle touch of current events. This project was supervised by Vincent Veillon and Paul Walther, directors of the RTS show 52 Minutes, as well as Florian Pittet, a digital scenography expert who guided the creation of the show's set design.
FILM STUDIES
with Klaudia Reynicke
The 2024 fiction film workshop for 2nd year students was lead by swiss and peruvian director Klaudia Reynicke.
ANNOUNCEMENT
ECAL presents two exhibitions at Milano Design Week 2025
PARTNERSHIP
For Viessmann, ECAL Master Product Design students are rethinking the aesthetics of heat pumps, combining innovation with harmonious integration into the urban landscape.
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
Congratulations to ECAL graduate artist Alfatih, who was awarded the Prix La Mobilière 2025 at the recent Salon Art Genève.
ANNOUNCEMENT
ECAL is launching a MA in Digital Experience Design (DXD), which will start in autumn 2025. This ambitious programme meets a growing demand for professionals in the field of new technologies.
ANNOUNCEMENT
SADAO: a brand new open access self-assessment platform. Challenge your art and design knowledge now!
ANNOUNCEMENT
After the success of Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) Creative Leadership in 2024, the registrations are now open for 2025 until the 26.11.2024.
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
Congratulations to photographer Sara De Brito Faustino, ECAL graduate, who wins the Prix Françoise Champoud 2024, an award that will support the development of her promising artistic career.
Learn more about projects and activities
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