ECAL X MHL – ECAL After Schmid

Dahui Jeon

By isolating certain parts of André Schmid’s images, I focus on their subtle gestures, which I reenact in my own images. Through this attention to detail, I explore the power of these poses and what they can still convey today.

The project becomes an intimate and fragmented reinterpretation, somewhere between observation and reinvention.

Mateo Friedrich

André Schmid’s staged photographs—in which he photographs his assistant in his studio and duplicates him using photomontages—have particularly inspired my work. These illusions remain a central theme in photography.

Similarly, Schmid’s archives contain numerous pairs of very similar images, yet with slight differences. My images revisit and reinterpret these conventions in a playful and contemporary way.

Nastasia Crohas-Beselia

In André Schmid’s portraits, women often hold a book—a conventional gesture associated with morality and respectability. In my work, I sought to transpose this image of the female reader into a contemporary context through intimate portraits.

The choice of poses, outfits, and sensuality reflects the emancipation of the female body, in contrast to the 19th century, when portraits focused on social representation.

Riccardo Troia

The traces of decomposition in André Schmid’s photographs become like three-dimensional sculptures on his images. The image begins to decompose on its own, adding a new layer to the surface: between the photographic background, the sculpture, and the chemistry, multiple layers overlap.

It is precisely this moment of transformation that lies at the heart of my own work. The transitory is frozen in matter, and time becomes visible on the very surface of the image.

Bogdan Kulyk

My video revolves around a reinterpretation of André Schmid’s work, viewed as a living material capable of generating new narratives. By drawing on reframing and formal exploration, and by blending images from the past with those of the present, my approach aims to reveal the mysterious and invisible dimension of archival images, transforming them into new surfaces for interpretation.

The pattern of the river becomes the site of a metamorphosis between the real and the symbolic. In exploring the beds of these waterways, I have focused on abandoned objects: eroded bricks that bear within them the traces of a human origin transformed by time. By juxtaposing archival material with these found objects and contemporary photographs, the mystery becomes a force of thought in its own right.

Lucie Shrag

Just as André Schmidt offers us a glimpse into families and their relationships through his work, I, in turn, wanted to shine a light on today’s families in Lausanne. I seek to celebrate diversity and move beyond traditional family structures.

“Families” reveals Lausanne from the inside and is part of an ever-evolving project.

Martin Antherieu

Inspired by the work of André Schmid, my project uses his archival images of glaciers and moons as a catalyst to propel photography toward new contemporary imaginaries.

Straddling the line between technical homage and artistic reinvention, this approach creates a dialogue between traditional techniques and modern studio setups, where figures from the past come to life within crafted dioramas.

Janne Edel

My work draws inspiration from André Schmid’s studio setups. The poses of his models and the quiet, otherworldly atmosphere of his early photographs have particularly influenced my work. I found a connection between Schmid’s images and our contemporary world through the vacant storefronts in Lausanne, whose large windows struck me as theatrical stages.

In my work, real and fictional elements come together, as do real people and mannequins. As in Schmid’s work, the question of perspective—which side of the glass one observes a silhouette from—was important to me.

Louise Botti Ballager

My work, “Les témoins,” is a photographic project featuring portraits of statues created in the 19th century, based on self-portraits by the sculptors of that era. These faces, which lived during André Schmid’s time, serve as timeless witnesses to a vanished generation.

When viewing these images, viewers are confronted with a memory frozen in gazes carved into stone, and find themselves face to face with André Schmid’s contemporaries.

Landelin Schaub

My project explores the process of archiving André Schmid’s work in order to preserve his history, as well as that of Lausanne and his contemporaries. A fictional documentation of the MHL’s archive rooms—through still lifes and photographs of spaces—gradually transforms into a mysterious scene. Opening the boxes reveals ghosts through the prism of the archives.

These ghosts symbolize the life of André Schmid and his era, preserved through his work and the archiving process.

Janine Agbayani

Being photographed in the 16th century was a very expensive process. Landscape photographs and portraits of families or prominent figures were the most common. However, in André Schmid’s archives, there are two photographs of cats.

In our contemporary world, the figure of the cat takes on a very special significance, particularly on the Internet, where images of cats are among the most widely shared. I was therefore intrigued by the revival of André Schmid’s cat. This reinterpreted cat comes to life within the MHL and rediscovers the city of Lausanne in today’s society.

Nicolas Tripod

My work draws inspiration from André Schmid’s portraits of children to explore contemporary representations of childhood. In collaboration with Nyima, a six-year-old boy, my project offers an immersion into his inner fortress, where imagination, protection, and resilience intertwine within his daily life.

Straddling the line between documentary and fiction, this collaborative work places the child at the heart of the photographic process. Photographed repeatedly by André Schmid, the fortified castle becomes here a sensitive projection of his inner world as it takes shape.

Luca Humm

I was deeply moved by the powerful sense of memory and a certain, almost spiritual aura that emanates from André Schmid’s images. These photographs reminded me of old family photos, particularly those of my grandparents.

As an act of commemoration, I draw on my own memories and my interpretation of presence to evoke the figure of the ghost. I try to capture the imprint of those who have left us and who continue to watch over us through places, memories, and images.

Natasha Saccardi

My photography project draws inspiration from the surrealist approach found in André Schmid’s staged photographs. Using his archives as a starting point, I have developed a project based on the idea of dreams: certain details, poses, or fragments from his images are reused and transformed in my own staged compositions.

The project offers a personal interpretation of his world, where these elements are reassembled and take on a new form.

Adriana Saint-Wilkolek

“Conference” is based on the deterioration of André Schmid’s images and, more broadly, questions the preservation of images. It creates a tension between two temporalities: that of 19th-century images, subject to physical wear and tear, and that of contemporary, digital images, whose fragility is less visible but very much present—data loss, obsolescence, silent disappearance.

This reflection takes the form of a mock lecture, staged in a specific location: a reinterpretation of André Schmid’s photography studio, embodied by an actor who comments on its own deterioration and that of the digital age. The aim is to shift the viewer’s perspective. Viewers can observe the deterioration of the images, but they can also reflect on their own relationship to the images they produce, store, and believe they are preserving.