ECAL x Polaroid Foundation

This workshop brought together ECAL graduate artist Douglas Mandry, the Polaroid Foundation, and around thirty Bachelor Photography students. They had the exceptional opportunity to work with a camera that produces Polaroid films in a 40 × 60 cm format and weighs nearly 200 kg. This experience was made possible thanks to its operators, John Reuter and Harriet Browse, who introduced the students to the use of this unique device and the Polaroid Foundation team. Douglas Mandry provided the project’s artistic direction and supported the students in their experiments carried out directly with and on the films. The final result was presented as a collective exhibition on ECAL’s premises, revealing a particularly rich diversity of approaches and visions.

Workshop (2025) with Douglas Mandry

Assistants: Gaétan Uldry
Students: Adriana Saint-Wilkolek, Bogdan Kulyk, Dahui Jeon, Janine Agbayani, Janne Edel, Landelin Schaub, Louise Botti Balaguer, Luca Humm, Lucie Schrag, Martin Antherieu, Mateo Friedrich, Nastasia Crohas-Beselia, Natasha Saccardi, Nicolas Tripod, Riccardo Troia, Céleste Tarbourdeau, Nora Neves, Magali Monin, Theo Previdoli, Tristan Wadsworth, Chloé Loichot, Vittorio Franzolini, Léa Isoard, Louise Tapponnier, Colas Ravey, Lee Eggenschwiler, Antoine Genoud, Auriane Nicollier, Maël Le Guével, Morea Gërxhaliu
Workshop: 1st semester
Know-how: Scenography, Imagemaking, Still life, Portrait

Louise Botti Balaguer , Janne Edel , Magali Monin , Céleste Tarbourdeau - ECAL x Polaroid Foundation

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Martin Antherieu , Luca Humm , Bogdan Kulyk - ECAL x Polaroid Foundation

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Dahui Jeon , Landelin Schaub , Riccardo Troia - ECAL x Polaroid Foundation

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Léa Isoard , Louise Tapponnier , Nicolas Tripod - ECAL x Polaroid Foundation

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Lee Eggenschwiler , Vittorio Franzolini , Auriane Nicollier - ECAL x Polaroid Foundation

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Janine Agbayani , Natasha Saccardi , Lucie Schrag - ECAL x Polaroid Foundation

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Antoine Genoud , Maël Le Guével , Chloé Loichot - ECAL x Polaroid Foundation

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Noé Pizzera , Theo Previdoli , Tristan Wadsworth - ECAL x Polaroid Foundation

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Nastasia Crohas-Beselia , Mateo Friedrich , Adriana Saint-Wilkolek - ECAL x Polaroid Foundation

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Morea Gërxhaliu , Nora Neves , Colas Ravey - ECAL x Polaroid Foundation

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The Indecisive Moment – 2025

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.

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Workshop with Thomas Rousset

with Thomas Rousset

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BA GRAPHIC DESIGN

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Eliot Dubi – JUST IN CASE

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Lidia Molina González – Toilet Break Magazine

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.

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