“For a Swiss, I am a Japanese and for a Japanese I am a Swiss or rather a gaijin.» My name is David "Takashi" Favrod. I was born on the 2nd of July 1982 in Kobe, Japan, of a Japanese mother and a Swiss father. When I was 6 months old, my parents decided to come and live in Switzerland, more precisely in Vionnaz, a little village in lower Valais. As my father had to travel for his work a lot, I was mainly brought up by my mother who taught me her principles and her culture. When I was 18, I asked for double nationality at the Japanese embassy, but they refused, because it is only given to Japanese women who wish to obtain their husband’s nationality. It is from this feeling of rejection and also from a desire to prove that I am as Japanese as I am Swiss that this work was created. “Gaijin” is a fictional narrative, a tool for my quest for identity, where self-portraits imply an intimate and solitary relationship that I have with myself. The mirror image is frozen in a figurative alter ego that serves as an anchor point. The aim of this work is to create “my own Japan”, in Switzerland, from memories of my journeys when I was small, my mother’s stories, popular and traditional culture and my grandparents war narratives.“
BA PHOTOGRAPHY
with Florence Tétier, Nicolas Coulomb
"Le Mâle" - 30th anniversary In 2025, "Le Mâle" will celebrate its 30th anniversary. With this in mind, students have been working on the brand's fragrance. Reflections on masculinity and different representations of the body in 2025.
BA PHOTOGRAPHY
with Nicolas Poillot
In September 2024, the start of the academic year at ECAL / University of Art and Design Lausanne, was highlighted by the beginning of our collaboration with trail equipment manufacturer Nnormal. At the same time, not far from our university, Kilian Jornet, the founder of the brand, gave our teams a taste for exploits by linking 82 peaks in the Alps over 4,000 meters high, shattering all records in the process. In trail running, as in photography, you need passion, discipline and endurance. Our Bachelor Photography students at ECAL are not all great sportsmen and women, but they are driven by the desire to achieve visual exploits. Trained in technical mastery, conceptual development and risk-taking, they spent three years in a field of exploration that allows them to seek out limits and chart their path. It's essential for them to get off the beaten track and find a visual language that sets them apart from the vast quantity of images that overwhelm us. ECAL has a long tradition of collaborating with top-level brands and professionals who, in addition to their own activities, wish to pass on their skills and experience to a passionate young generation looking for guidance in unfamiliar territory. Among them is Régis Tosetti, artistic director of Nnormal, who has a strong link with ECAL, where he trained for a degree in Visual Communication in 2005. Régis kicked off this collaboration with head coach Nicolas Poillot, also an art director. Nicolas forged his raw and elegant style by taking fashion towards the documentary. A guest lecturer at ECAL for several years, he has guided students tirelessly, with pragmatism and rigor, through the mapping of the brand and its visual expression. In a polluted, noisy world, saturated with superimposed stimuli, it is difficult to concentrate, to focus on a clear objective, a goal to look forward to. The opportunity offered by the collaboration between ECAL and Nnormal has encouraged a young generation of photographers to turn to the mountains. Nature is a terrain of escape, communion and adventure for an essential imagination made up of bodies and landscape. The main subject is the mediating element between these two components, the shoes that allow us to go further in this union. But there's much more than shoes in the work of Nicolas and his students: there are values of ecology, dry and wet atmospheres, solar and nocturnal lights, technical and organic textures, muscles and tense faces that achieve deliverance through their exploits. And finally, in trail running as in photography, despite sood technical and mental preparation and systematic study of the forecasts, there are unforeseen circumstances that force us to come up with improvised solutions that reveal new forms of beauty.
BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
BA MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
BA PHOTOGRAPHY
with Sami Benhadj
Music video projects created within the framework of the Sequence course supervised by Sami Benhadj. Each 2nd-year student in the Graphic Design, Media & Interaction Design & Photography Bachelor programs produced an individual music video. Taking an existing track as a starting point, every project sought to translate the music into images, exploring visual storytelling, rhythm, and staging. Students were encouraged to experiment and develop a creative and personal approach, resulting in original graphic worlds where sound and image resonate with one another.
BA PHOTOGRAPHY
with Natacha Lesueur
Documenteur – The Power of the Fake Based on projects developed around a common theme, students create a personal and in-depth body of work exploring the notion of deception. They build a project that plays with the boundaries of photographic truth, using the medium as an artifice of lies.
BA PHOTOGRAPHY
with Maxime Guyon
OBI: Object Brochure Investigation More than just a store, OBI has become an integral part of local history. This Renens landmark also maintains a close link with ECAL, serving as a landmark and source of inspiration for its students. In fact, there is an architectural filiation between the two: Jean Tschumi's son, Bernard Tschumi, is the architect who designed the ECAL's renovation. This generational dialogue further strengthens OBI's place in students' visual and creative imaginations. OBI embodies the spirit of “Do It Yourself” (DIY), a concept that emerged in 1968 under the impetus of Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, an alternative publication born of his exploration under 200 micrograms of LSD. The DIY movement advocated an alternative lifestyle and resistance to hyper-consumption. Today, this philosophy is far removed from that embodied by OBI, considered to be a mass-market store. This paradox will be the focus of this semester's project. Since DIY has been structured around a publication, students will come full circle by producing an OBI-inspired edition of their own.