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FILM STUDIES

Workshop with Benoît Dervaux

by Noé Bregnard, Eva Rust, Victor Durand Matinella, Lou Haenggi, Samuel Harari, Hana Magimel, Nolan Grando, Mileny Viera de Andrade, Zélia Zanone

Second-year Bachelor's students attended a workshop with Belgian cinematographer Benoît Dervaux, known for his work on the Dardenne brothers' films. He was responsible for the cinematography on the Swiss films Laissez-moi by Maxime Rappaz (2023) and À bras-le-corps by Marie-Elsa Sgualdo (2025).

PHOTOGRAPHY

Applied Photography - Automne 2025 - MAP1

with Charles Negre, Milo Keller

The course focuses on developing the ability to respond to a commission within one’s own artistic practice, through an introduction to studio photography and constructed image-making. With an emphasis on still life, students refine their sensitivity to photographing and interpreting objects. Assignments revolve around transforming everyday objects into objects of desire, using the tools of commercial and product photography. Through styling, lighting, and visual storytelling, students explore how to reframe the ordinary as something compelling, working across both traditional and improvised studio setups.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

COUNTDOWN – 2025

with Mario Von Rickenbach

The students worked on an interactive countdown in a web environment. Each day, they were tasked with creating a new sketch, culminating in their own collection, which could also be combined with projects from the entire class.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Workshop - CGI WITH AREA OF WORK – 2025

with Area Of Work

The Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) Workshop is an introduction to 3D creation software that allows you to create images with photographic qualities that are not photographs.  This workshop centers on the theme of “Minimal,” inviting students to explore the creative and technical foundations of contemporary CGI image-making. It emphasizes materiality and the expressive impact of reduction. Every form, light, and texture has a specific role, negative space guides the emotional tone, and fine details unify the composition.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Maisie Cuisine Book

with Maisie Cousins

The aim of this workshop, led by photographer Maisie Cousins, is to use photography as a tool to broaden our powers of observation. During the week, students explored macro photography to create miniature and abstract worlds using everyday objects and accessories. This invites us to reflect: what else are we overlooking in our immediate environment?

PHOTOGRAPHY

ECAL x Polaroid Foundation

with Douglas Mandry

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.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Digital Attention

with Irene Pereyra

Where does our attention go? In this workshop, first-year students become their own data researchers for 24 hours, observing when and why their phone draws focus. They track triggers, emotions, recovery time, control, context, apps used, duration, body language, energy, and inner dialogue. These everyday traces are then transformed into a one-page scrollytelling experience, a visual story of how attention moves through a day.

FINE ARTS

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Vibrations Forward

with Joël Vacheron, Angelo Benedetto, Olympe Boutaghane, Francis Baudevin

Based on archives and experiences associated with Vibrations (1991–2013), this research analyses how the magazine's textual, graphic and photographic content provides insight into the challenges of communicating about popular music today.

FINE ARTS

FINE ARTS

MA CI

The Assembly of Writings

with Federico Nicolao

A collective exploration of the new relations between contemporary writing and artistic practice.

(Re-)Viewing Paik – 2025

with Patrick Keller, François Bovier, Erika Marthins

A comparative and practice-based study on the transformative effects at play in the digital and hybrid exhibition of a body of non-digital native artworks (some artworks by artist Nam June Paik serving as a mean of understanding).

TYPE DESIGN

Glass gilding workshop with Eddy Bennet

with Eddy Bennett

In this analogue workshop, students merged the ornate lettering styles of the late 19th century and the meticulous craft of reverse glass painting and gilding with their personal perspectives on type design. Thanks to Gold Leaf Supplies for supporting us with material!

Design for Recycling through Automation and Robotics in Apparel Accessories and Footwear

with Maxwell Ashford

This project develops design for recycling textile-based goods, one of the most damaging waste streams, using contemporary toolsets to dismantle products into pure fractions.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Audio Reactive Festival Poster Series

with Talia Cotton

First-year students designed a series of audioreactive posters for a music festival. They utilized dynamic tools and live data input to explore sound-responsive visuals within social media's digital format, creating a cohesive and recognizable festival identity.

DESIGN FOR LUXURY & CRAFTSMANSHIP

Emilie Heger – Typology of the Cut

by Emilie Heger

The aim of this research project is to bring together the earliest tools from the Palaeolithic era with contemporary gemstone cutting. While flint tools were essential to the survival of early humans, the techniques and gestures involved in stone-cutting have evolved into a particularly refined art, a symbol of wealth and power. Today, the only purpose of working precious stones, perfected by modern tools and technologies, is to maginify the reflection of light in order to produce aesthetic artefacts that are freed from their function. Typology of the Cut is a curatorial project that explores the duality between function and expression in relation to stone-cutting.

DESIGN FOR LUXURY & CRAFTSMANSHIP

Coline Schenck – Les formes de l’inconscient

by Coline Schenck

Glazed earthenware pieces, intended for tableware and daily use, are developed through a process combining mental well-being and sensory design. Studies in neuroscience and neuroaesthetics are analyzed to identify shapes, colors, and textures that promote calm. This data is first translated visually into pastel compositions, then transformed into volumes adapted to the function of each object. The graphic composition seeks to visually stimulate while minimizing cognitive load, while the volume invites attentive tactile exploration. In a daily environment marked by sensory overload, these objects aim to reintroduce calm by turning the ordinary into a soothing refuge.

DESIGN FOR LUXURY & CRAFTSMANSHIP

Arnaud Tantet – : To a Glacier

by Arnaud Tantet

Global warming is transforming the landscapes around us. The melting of the ice is intensifying, affecting the thousand-year-old glaciers of Europe. The aim of this project, : To a Glacier, is to use design to bear witness to the Mont Blanc glacier. This work is based around holistic field research, in the form of objects, photos, brochures and sounds directly inspired by these disappearing giants. Developed in collaboration with glass artisans at the CIAV (Centre International d'Art Verrier, in Meisenthal), the results of this project have included a number of experiments in glass, using moulds made from different materials.

DESIGN FOR LUXURY & CRAFTSMANSHIP

Aina Wang – Once Gold

by Aina Wang

In the 19th century, Prussian citizens gave up their gold to support the war, receiving cast-iron jewellery engraved ‘Gold gab ich für Eisen’ - ‘I gave gold for iron’. Berlin iron, an alloy of iron and carbon, covered in a layer of patinated black lacquer, was born of a moment when personal sacrifice became collective identity. This project revives that gesture by concealing the gold at the heart of the iron, like a buried memory. Inspired by military insignia and Gothic geometry, the piece evokes reverence and loss. Designed for movement, it transforms into ten forms, from brooch to pendant to belt, linking the ritual of the past with the wear and tear of the present.

TYPE DESIGN

Nir Zabari Yenni – Safra ספרא سفرا

by Nir Zabari Yenni

Safra ספרא سفرا is a trilingual typeface family comprising both serif and sans styles. Designed with a contemporary, low-contrast approach, it supports Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin scripts with clear and consistent typesetting across languages. Balancing structural differences while preserving the distinct voice of each script, it enables multilingual communication without forcing uniformity. The design functions as a bridge between writing systems, maintaining typographic integrity and visual harmony. Suitable for both extended reading and display use in cultural, educational, and public contexts.

PRODUCT DESIGN

Cedric Zimmerman – DUCTUS

by Cedric Zimmerman

DUCTUS is investigating how tangential fans can be reinterpreted in combination with spiral ducts, which are normally used in industrial HVAC systems, in a modular, energy-efficient ceiling ventilation system. The galvanised sheet metal is perforated locally using a specially developed laser manufacturing process and then processed into spiral ducts in an industrial standard procedure with almost no material loss. These ducts serve both as air ducts and as a supporting structure for the fan unit. The system, manufactured in collaboration with the Lausanne-based company Air Ventil, generates a wide, quiet air flow while also adding architectural accents.

PRODUCT DESIGN

Liyah Tomashof – Ensemble

by Liyah Tomashof

Rooted in the Vaud region, Ensemble explores proximity as a tool for sustainable and ethical production. In a globalized world where materials and knowledge are increasingly detached from place and people, this project explores how the design process can reweave a return to local relationships: craft, territory, and creative practice. In collaboration with a local ceramic artisan, the project has resulted in a series of porcelain objects shaped through shared dialogue and learning. Alongside the objects, mapping, interviews, and documentation of regional artisans accompany the work—highlighting a method of making that is relational, grounded, and reciprocal.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Mathilde Driebold – Ce qu'il reste de nous

by Mathilde Driebold

This book exists for what remains of us—and perhaps, of you. Fragments of an intimate past inscribed in, and lost within, a social context that goes beyond us. This diploma project takes the form of an editorial narrative, blending personal stories and social archives. Through this work, I explore the traces left by addiction within a family setting, bringing individual and collective memory into dialogue. Ce qu'il reste de nous also demonstrates that graphic design can be used as a tool to question social realities, give shape to sensitive subjects, and break the silence.

FILM STUDIES

David Gonseth – Noirs matins

by David Gonseth

The youngest in a family gradually senses a quiet unease lurking in their ordinary daily life.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Gabrielle Coué – Sans témoin

by Gabrielle Coué

Cosmetic surgery, both intimate and technical, reflects our modern relationship to the body and its transformation. Sans témoin avoids transformed faces, focusing instead on what remains unseen: places, tools, invisible gestures. It captures the moment when the body changes without being experienced. Anesthesia suspends consciousness; the metamorphosis happens without witness. A desire is expressed, the body entrusted, then awakening. Between the two: a void. This void takes shape in images—cold rooms, metallic tools, close-up skin textures. Little or no human presence, only traces. The body becomes matter, managed within a controlled, standardized system.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Fredrik Maag – Up There

by Fredrik Maag

Up There looks at Switzerland's role in the “Third Space Age”: an era in which it is no longer states but private companies which are significantly shaping space travel. Although much of the technology that comes to play up there is hardly ever seen, our dependence on it, as well as its geopolitical implications, are extremely far-reaching. The tension between apparent invisibility and simultaneous omnipresence is illustrated on the basis of Swiss involvement in the current Space Race.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Delio Testa – Partenopei

by Delio Testa

Naples is a vibrant expression of a people’s deep love for their land. This passion lives on despite the weight of daily chaos and hardships that run deeper than it appears. To understand it, a person must enter Neapolitan life, where devotion to figures from religion, culture or everyday life is everywhere. These icons give strength, inspire creation and sustain a constant desire to celebrate. Neapolitans do not just endure struggle. They turn it into energy and a powerful source of hope. This book reflects that spirit through portraits and documentary work.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Belinda Kiela – Bana Ya Mbòka

by Belinda Kiela

The images in this edition are fragments of an immersion at the University of Kinshasa : a glimpse into student life in a vibrant, ever-moving capital. Through laughter, doubts, and encounters, the photographer has learned to anchor herself in a daily life far removed from the one she knows in Europe. Bana ya Mbóka — children of the country — gives a face to the youths who study, dream, and resist on this campus. Founded in 1954, UniKin aimed to be a leading African institution, but instability slowed that vision. Despite strikes, power cuts, and limited resources, the students she has met exude strength and clarity. This project reveals moments of connection, gestures of resilience, and hopes that persists through it all.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Adel Debabéche – Ouled El Bahdja

by Adel Debabéche

Ouled El Bahdja offers an intimate glimpse into Algerian youth, caught between waiting and the desire to leave. This project explores the mental and physical space of a generation dreaming of elsewhere, in a country where the future feels suspended. It is a portrait of a fragmented daily life, where time stretches into boredom, yet a quiet tension remains—between resignation and hope. An attempt to capture those in-between moments, those gazes turned toward Europe—a collective fantasy, a promise of recognition, but also an uncertain path... Ouled El Bahdja sheds light on a youth that, despite sociopolitical constraints, seeks to build a meaningful existence. A gesture to make visible the dreams and desires for emancipationborn in the shadows.

FILM STUDIES

Lanna Melissa Nebie – Rémanence

by Lanna Melissa Nebie

A young woman seeks to save her father's soul, guided by a blind man to a forbidden place.

FILM STUDIES

Antonin Dutoit – À perte de vue

by Antonin Dutoit

An old man dies slowly, cared for by a home aide. A young man watches them, in silence.