nothing happens in the absence of repetition

Projects MA FINE ARTS

Gaia Del Santo – nothing happens in the absence of repetition

nothing happens in the absence of repetition is a series of works centered on quotes taken from press releases and exhibition texts for shows or works the artist saw over the course of their Master's degree. This series takes place within a research on how the necessity of branding under platform capitalism is accelerating the standardization of self-expression, and how this manifests in the arts, where the commercial ties of this indispensable tool are decried and denied. The citations were selected based on their ability to describe the artist's overall practice or a particular work of theirs. Through this selection, this project probes a double-bind: the expectation of an artist's indisputable originality and their need to locate themselves within a legible lineage.

Diploma project (2026)

Students
Gaia Del Santo
nothing happens in the absence of repetition_ECAL_Gaia Del Santo_2_compressed.jpeg

Projets similaires
See more projects

Hugo Baud – ALCOVE

MA FINE ARTS

Hugo Baud – ALCOVE

by Hugo Baud

ALCOVE is an installation located in the ECAL lobby that invites a reflection on such an exhibition space. It consists of the school's display walls, each measuring 2.06m by 2.8 0m. The structure, which is 6.18 m long, 4.12 m wide, and 2.80 m high, forms a rectangle on the floor with an area of 25.46 m². The exterior of the structure is painted in S 1502-R, the official color of the building's walls, and the interior in RAL 9016, the color designated for exhibition spaces. The name ALCOVE echoes that of the iconic sofas in the ECAL entrance hall.
Iulia Bucuresteanu – Somewhere in Draculaland

MA FINE ARTS

Iulia Bucuresteanu – Somewhere in Draculaland

by Iulia Bucuresteanu

Somewhere in Draculaland explores how the figure of Dracula shaped the Western construction of Eastern Europe through imperialist and neo-gothic frameworks. It examines how these narratives persist today through Hollywood-driven, pseudo-folkloric images that reinforce cultural hierarchies. Drawing on the figure of the vampire and its associations with contagion, otherness, and invasion, this project traces how these images emerge from late 19th-century anxieties and continue to circulate. Somewhere in Draculaland focuses on the way these representations detach from their literary origins and are reintroduced as pseudo-folkloric truths, creating a cycle in which identity is reduced to mere recognizability, to the benefit of Western cultural authority.
Hugo Cuenot – A strip of fruitful land of our own (Tereska Torres / Karim Kattan / Hugo Cuenot)

MA FINE ARTS

Hugo Cuenot – A strip of fruitful land of our own (Tereska Torres / Karim Kattan / Hugo Cuenot)

by Hugo Cuenot

Mixing sound and sculpture, A strip of fruitful land of our own is an installation of three paper windows with dedicated texts that can be heard near them. Made out of delicate Xuan paper, the frail windows are a reproduction of the artist's home windows, brining his fragile perception into the space. The three texts, read in three different voices and coming from three different timelines, weave stories of displacement, war, desire and queerness, bringing a vision of the world to be seen and heard through these veil-thin Swiss windows. As the fragility of our perception of the world is constantly challenged by the stories we are told, now is the time to listen to them.
Olive Godlee – Me and Other People's Children

MA FINE ARTS

Olive Godlee – Me and Other People's Children

by Olive Godlee

​​Me and Other People's Children is a triptych, made with graphite transferred onto raw canvas. The source images are photographs taken by the artist, with and of the children in their care. On the lower right appears a text message bubble, sent by the artist/nanny to the mother of the children. This piece is a continuation of a body of work that grapples with the triangulation of the nanny, the mother, and the child.
Taleb Lachheb – FRANCE FIST: EXPORAMA

MA FINE ARTS

Taleb Lachheb – FRANCE FIST: EXPORAMA

by Taleb Lachheb

FRANCE FIST: EXPORAMA is an installation composed of cardboard sculptures and a text read through a speaker. This project treats language as an unstable material, eroded by performativity. Sentences produce unexpected connections between distant subjects, such as body, family, work, sexuality, society, future. Meaning is not demonstrative: it emerges through successive collisions and shifts. The whole work proposes a fragmentary reading, close to a "Paranoid Reading", where relations between elements remain unstable and paradoxical.

Related courses
See all courses

MA FINE ARTS
Nous utilisons des cookies pour collecter des informations sur la manière dont vous utilisez ecal.ch.
Nous utilisons ces informations pour faire fonctionner le site web au mieux et améliorer nos services.