Summer University in Veneto – 2024

Summer University in Veneto – 2024

In September 2024, 3rd year students explored the rich heritage of Italy's Veneto region, an area at the crossroads of artistic, cultural and industrial history. The trip gave the students an invaluable opportunity to immerse themselves between tradition and innovation, and to experience different facets of design and publishing through enriching encounters.

 

Other (2025) with Angelo Benedetto, Guy Meldem, Harry Bloch

Assistants
Morgane Cachin
Students
Candice Aepli, Léa Corin, Matteo Cortesi, Mathilde Driebold, Delphine Brantschen, Emilie Müller, Constance Mauler, Flora Hayoz, Lidia Molina González, Amélie Bertholet, Coraline Beyeler, Eliot Dubi, Dorian Pangallo, Paul Paturel, Hugo Scholl, Diego Steiner, Cyprien Valenza, Marc Facchinetti, Alfredo Venti
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Verona

In Verona, a visit to the Fedrigoni paper mill, which specialises in the creation of top-of-the-range paper, gave them an insight into the manufacturing process and enabled them to design a collaborative project based on paper samples. The students also had the opportunity to explore the precious collection of manuscripts in the Biblioteca del Capitolare, a unique witness to the history of the written word.

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Treviso

On the way to Venice, a stop at Carlo Scarpa's Brion Tomb gave us an insight into the architecture of this funerary monument. In Treviso, a meeting with former student Federico Barbon led to a fascinating discussion on book design.

Venice

In Venice, they discovered the Art Biennale, exploring the exhibitions at the Arsenale and the Giardini. At the same time, a meeting with Benjamin Reichen from the Åbäke collective enabled them to find out more about his involvement in a screen-printing workshop dedicated to the rehabilitation of prisoners. A visit to the Grafiche Veneziane printing works rounded off this immersion in contemporary publishing.

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GEOFF HAN – WORK AND TURN

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by Leandra Adler, Cansu Celen, Layana Comte, Anaïs Dermont, Camille Genoud, Eve Gremaud, Eloïse Guillod, Mathis Harmant, Marie Hintzy, Matteo Lucca, Maxime Manera, Gaëtan Mauclair, Mathys Mauron, Emma Morisseau, Sara Pedersoli, Lucie Pittet, Hélène Prongué, Leonardo Mariucci, Alice Refachinho, Justine Renevey, Gaspard Schlatter, Laura Simons, Vu Toni Thien Duc, Maïa Yassin, Jonas Zesiger

In November 2025, 27 ECAL students took part in Work and Turn, a workshop led by Geoff Han exploring the theme of labor and the often overlooked work that sustains the school. Located in a former IRIL knitwear factory in the industrial area of Renens, ECAL occupies a vast building whose daily functioning depends on many visible and invisible forms of labor. Over five days, students worked in small teams to produce a collective 96-page pocket-sized publication. Each pair created an 8-page photographic visual essay focusing on a specific aspect of labor at ECAL. Rather than relying on traditional portraits, the projects explored more poetic and indirect ways of documenting traces of work through spaces, gestures, materials, and infrastructures. The entire publication was manually printed on an offset press by the students themselves, in either black or red and black. The printing process was a central part of the workshop: participants prepared the plates, set up the press, and ran the prints. This hands-on production process echoed the theme of labor explored throughout the publication.  

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