When I was about twelve years old, my life and my father's life began to run parallel paths that crossed only from time to time; even in his most mature years he remains for me a mysterious, almost invented character. When his health began to worsen, I decided to make the first trip to my native land, Sicily, hoping to reconnect with him.
Diploma project (2008) by Tamara Lanfranconi
Fiction
Synopsis
When I was about twelve years old, my life and my father's life began to run in two parallel paths that crossed only from time to time; even in his most mature years he remains for me a mysterious, almost invented character. When his health conditions started to worsen, I decided to make the first trip to my native land, Sicily, hoping to reconnect with him.
My father left Palermo at the age of seven, in the March of '43, and he decided never to return there without ever giving me the opportunity to appropriate and share my roots with him.
This journey represents for me the answer to his silence, a reply to an absence, but also a research that helps me to understand what symbolizes for me a land unknown and until now only imagined, to arrive at the conclusion that what I need to face is at the starting point.
Tamara Lanfranconi
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 GRAPHIC DESIGN
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.
BA PHOTOGRAPHY
with Matthieu Gafsou
This year's “Documentary Practices” course is devoted to a territory that is very close to us and, in a way for most of us, very far away: the countryside. For a city-dweller, the countryside is an out-of-town territory where you can go for a walk, where there are farmers, fields and forests. Recent votes in Switzerland testify to a considerable widening of the gap between town and country: the far right would be the place of rurality, while the left would be urban. This territory is not only topologically different from the city, but also seems to be inhabited by people whose lifestyles and thinking are at odds with the city. The reality, however, is obviously more complex and resists such simplification.
BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
by Lidia Molina González
It all started with taking a break. A pause. A moment alone in a shared space: quiet, ordinary, a little strange. Toilets might not be the first place you’d look for big ideas, but that’s why we chose them. Toilet Break uses this overlooked space to explore how we live together, take space, and connect. This first issue is about in-betweens: between public and private, inside and outside. It gathers voices from Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, across generations and practices. A place where ideas circulate freely, where serious things can be said with a wink. A collective and personal space to test new editorial forms, listen more carefully, and believe in detours as a way forward. To take, quite literally, a moment to reflect and sit with things.
BA PHOTOGRAPHY
with Natacha Lesueur
“What is clearly conceived can be clearly expressed, and the words to say it come easily.” Nicholas Boileau, *L’art poétique*. As students embark on their final year of study at ECAL, with their interests and methods taking shape, this final project offers an opportunity to challenge their own rules, established practices and influences, to refuse to settle for the status quo and to take risks.