FILM STUDIES
Documentary Film Workshop with Marie-Eve Hildbrand - 2026
with Marie-Eve Hildbrand
The 2026 documentary film workshop for 1st year students was lead by swiss director Marie-Eve Hildbrand.
FILM STUDIES
Documentary film workshop with Verena Paravel - 2026
with Verena Paravel
The 2026 documentary film workshop for 2nd year students was lead by french director and visual anthropologist Verena Paravel.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Workshop with Rineke Dijkstra
with Rineke Dijkstra
What is good portrait? What technique do you choose? What kind of light do you use? Daylight or flash? What location or backdrop do you choose for? How do you choose your subject? How do you approach someone you don’t know? In this workshop, the students have explored what makes a good portrait and which tools you can use to create one.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Last Minute Risk
with Natacha Lesueur
“What is clearly conceived can be clearly expressed, and the words to say it come easily.” Nicholas Boileau, *L’art poétique*. As students embark on their final year of study at ECAL, with their interests and methods taking shape, this final project offers an opportunity to challenge their own rules, established practices and influences, to refuse to settle for the status quo and to take risks.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Léa Corin – Neither Fully Free, Nor Fully Captive
by Léa Corin
Neither Fully Free, Nor Fully Captive explores the theme of day parole. Through a video installation and a book, this project archives and documents the activities of an association dedicated to reintegration. The projection, conceived as an emotional archive, combines experimental videos with sound testimonies from individuals on day parole supported by the association, revealing the complexity of this transition. The book, as a complement, adopts a documentary and sensitive approach, blending stories and visual creations. This project transcends graphic form to foster social dialogue and shed light on an essential yet often overlooked issue.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
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.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Fine Art Photography
with Natacha Lesueur
Documenteur – The Power of the Fake Based on projects developed around a common theme, students create a personal and in-depth body of work exploring the notion of deception. They build a project that plays with the boundaries of photographic truth, using the medium as an artifice of lies.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Photographic Essays
with Matthieu Gafsou
This year's “Documentary Practices” course is devoted to a territory that is very close to us and, in a way for most of us, very far away: the countryside. For a city-dweller, the countryside is an out-of-town territory where you can go for a walk, where there are farmers, fields and forests. Recent votes in Switzerland testify to a considerable widening of the gap between town and country: the far right would be the place of rurality, while the left would be urban. This territory is not only topologically different from the city, but also seems to be inhabited by people whose lifestyles and thinking are at odds with the city. The reality, however, is obviously more complex and resists such simplification.
PHOTOGRAPHY
ECAL × SDOL, Horizon Ouest, Regards sur la métamorphose urbaine
with Matthieu Gafsou
New transport infrastructure is emerging, while former industrial wastelands are giving way to modern buildings and redesigned outdoor spaces. Gradually, residents are moving into these new neighborhoods and adopting new habits. To capture the first moments of life in these spaces, the association "Ouest lausannois: Prix Wakker 2011" has invited second-year students from the ECAL Bachelor of Photography program to observe them throughout 2024. This project highlights 18 ongoing construction sites or recently completed neighborhoods. Through their perspectives, the students offer original approaches to discovering, understanding, and appropriating these new spaces. Photography maintains a unique relationship with the world around us, as it often depends on it. Far from merely documenting reality in a strict sense, it has the power to transfigure and reveal the invisible or the unspeakable. This is the approach adopted by the ECAL photography students at the request of the "Ouest lausannois: Prix Wakker 2011" association, as they explored various territories in western Lausanne. As part of this commission, each student was randomly assigned a specific location—be it a new neighborhood, a construction site, or a distinctive building—on which they worked over an academic year. Faced with spaces that were sometimes unphotogenic or even resistant to imagery, the challenge was to look beyond appearances, to resonate with these places in order to grasp their unique dynamics. The photographs question our perception of these recent landscapes and bear witness to the human activity unfolding within them. What do they reveal about our ways of living and moving? Who are the people inhabiting these spaces? What new landscapes emerge from these rapid transformations? Through approaches that are sometimes sensitive and intimate, sometimes detached and analytical, or even driven by a formal fascination with the objects captured, the works presented reveal the density and diversity of everyday life. They bring forth a poetic vision of the city, inviting us to consider these territories not merely as functional backdrops but as fully-fledged spaces, rich with history, form, and identity—fluid and multifaceted, just like those who inhabit them.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Fine Art Photography
with Natacha Lesueur
VULGAR Based on projects developed around a common theme, students create a personal and in-depth body of work exploring the notion of deception. They build a project that plays with the boundaries of photographic truth, using the medium as an artifice of lies.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Video
with Olivia Schenker
Simulations By making a very short film, students learn fundamental notions in the narrative, visual and conceptual development of video production. The project provides essential technical skills in shooting, lighting, camera movement, sound recording, editing and post-production.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Photographic revelation
with Laurence Bonvin
Process The notion of Process, in the context of this course, can mean developing a project in which the students focus on the process rather than just the concept or the results. This should allow them to experiment, to look for new solutions, to explore unexpected paths, techniques and forms, to lose themselves and find themselves again. Sometimes we give up on an idea for fear of failure, of not having a strong enough idea or of not succeeding in producing sufficiently interesting images. The idea is for the students to free themselves from these injunctions so that they can explore their ideas, desires, obsessions and desires more freely.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Fine Art Photography
with Natacha Lesueur
Last minute risk As the students enter their final year of training at the ECAL, and their interests and methods take shape, it's time to take advantage of this last project to question our own rules, achievements and influences, not to be satisfied with them, and to take risks.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Applied Photography
with Calypso Mahieu
ZOOM IN ZOOM OUT This course, both practical and technical, required students to develop a true photographer’s eye. Its goal was to introduce them to or help them refine their skills in various photographic genres, such as still life, portraiture, architecture, as well as documentary and staged photography. These disciplines demanded particular attention and great rigor in selecting models, locations, and objects. Mastery of composition, framing, and light management—whether natural or artificial—was essential for achieving successful shots. Throughout the course, students were encouraged to sharpen their sense of observation and their ability to create images that were both precise and expressive.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Workshop Photographic chamber
with Matthieu Gafsou
The workshop week 4x5 is both an introduction to the 4x5 technical camera and a way to kickstart a photographic project. Students experience the process of analog shooting, from development to large format inkjet printing. This intense week is highly technical, but also focused on developing a photographic language, allowing for a better understanding of the fundamental workings of photography.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Fine Art Photography
with Natacha Lesueur
Last minute risk As the students enter their final year of training at the ECAL, and their interests and methods take shape, it's time to take advantage of this last project to question our own rules, achievements and influences, not to be satisfied with them, and to take risks.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Fine Art Photography
with Laurence Bonvin
Liquid Times Produce a project using photography and video on the theme of fluidity, liquid form and water.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Fine Art Photography
with Natacha Lesueur
Documentary, the power of make-believe. Based on projects developed around a common theme, the students develop a personal, in-depth project around the theme of pretense. They build a project that plays with the limits of veracity in photography, using it as an artifice of deception.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Video
with Olivia Schenker
Hot N Cold By making a very short film, students learn fundamental notions in the narrative, visual and conceptual development of video production. The project provides essential technical skills in shooting, lighting, camera movement, sound recording, editing and post-production.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Applied Photography
with Calypso Mahieu
Waliking in Renens A collaborative project in which students were asked to choose a local shop in Renens and to create a documentary project combining images of still life, architecture and portraits.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Video
with Orsola Valenti
Hors-champ “Showing by hiding, revealing by stealing": for a political practice of the audiovisual image. The main aim of the course is to raise awareness of the political dimension of the audiovisual gesture and give students the tools to distinguish the cinematographic image from the media image. Whereas the latter - flattened, emptied and therefore interchangeable - overwhelms its receptor, rendering it powerless, the cinematographic image liberates emotion and critical reflection. In this way, it goes beyond the supposedly faithful representation of reality.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Photographic revelation
with Laurence Bonvin
Endurance In this course, the objectives are to allow students to experiment with new approaches or techniques regarding past, ongoing, or diploma projects. They also have the opportunity to revisit and refine subjects that have not met their satisfaction in terms of concept, form, technique, or execution. This experience aims to expand ideas, refine techniques, continue unfinished work while improving it, or build a more comprehensive body of images. Endurance lies at the heart of this process, whether it's persevering in completing a project, revisiting an idea until it's exhausted, or overcoming obstacles such as lack of time, self-confidence, or courage. This semester thus offers students the opportunity to confront their limits, surpass them, and achieve their best in their endeavors.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Fine Art Photography
with Natacha Lesueur
Seduce, they said Based on projects developed around the theme of seduction, students develop a personal, in-depth project over the whole semester.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Workshop Photographic chamber
with Matthieu Gafsou
The workshop week 4x5 is both an introduction to the 4x5 technical camera and a way to kickstart a photographic project. Students experience the process of analog shooting, from development to large format printing. This intense week is highly technical, but also focused on developing a photographic language, allowing for a better understanding of the fundamental workings of photography.
PHOTOGRAPHY
BLI × ECAL
with Matthieu Gafsou
The collaboration between the ECAL and the BLI touches on contemporary issues that are of particular concern to students at the school: our relationship with minorities and the appropriate way of representing them. For a long time, a paternalistic anthropological attitude was tolerated and even encouraged in the world of photography. Attitudes have changed, and the young artists at the ECAL have developed a relationship of equals with the various communities they have encountered. Creating the images required a language that enabled the students to position themselves in relation to others and to establish protocols in line with their own values and those of the people on the other side of the lens. The images give us a complex, multifaceted panorama of our city's cultural diversity, and show us that encounters and mixes are possible and fruitful. Matthieu Gafsou, photographer and teacher.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Fine Art Photography
with Natacha Lesueur
Seduce, they said Based on projects developed around the theme of seduction, students develop a personal, in-depth project over the whole semester.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Video
with Orsola Valenti
Image, sound and politics: how to raise the image The main aim of the course is to stimulate reflection on the audiovisual gesture. By confronting students with the complexity of audiovisual creation and its compositional dimension (image and sound, space and time, frame and rhythm, body and set), they are encouraged to grasp its richness and potential.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Workshop Photographic chamber
with Matthieu Gafsou
The workshop week 4x5 is both an introduction to the 4x5 technical camera and a way to kickstart a photographic project. Students experience the process of analog shooting, from development to large format printing. This intense week is highly technical, but also focused on developing a photographic language, allowing for a better understanding of the fundamental workings of photography.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Photographic Essays
with Matthieu Gafsou
In the second year, the course Photographic Essays course enables students to exercise a documentary photographic practice –one based on a relationship with reality, with something anchored in the here and now. This year, students worked on a theme related to ecology in the broadest sense: a very specific, concrete starting point (a permaculture garden, Extinction Rebellion activists, documentation of polluted sites, encounters with people working with more-than-human animals), a broader, multiple or personal approach.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Photographic Hanging
with Laurence Bonvin
For two semesters, second-year students developped projects related to the thematic Reclaiming Water. They were invited to question and procuce images in relation to the countless political, social, economic, human and environmental issues linked to water. Who owns it? Is it a common good or a marketable resource? How can we visually address these issues?
PHOTOGRAPHY
Révélation Photographique
with Laurence Bonvin
During the first semester of the third year, this course enables students to take up a project they have already started, which could be continued in the second semester for the diploma. Students are encouraged to take risks in form, technique, production or subject matter.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Création photographique
with Natacha Lesueur
Over the course of a semester, the students develop a project that examines the challenges of auteur photography and develops their personal expression. The project may be continued as a diploma project in the second semester.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Mara Wohlfahrt – Algae in posterum
by Mara Wohlfahrt
Algae represent our past, our present and our future. They are at the origin of life on Earth and supply us with 70% of our oxygen. They are capable of transforming and thus replacing most of the products that represent a threat to the survival of our planet, such as plastics, fabrics and fuels. Atelier LUMA, a design and research laboratory based in Arles, is looking for ways to transform algae into a material that can be used in the field of creation. Since algae is still considered insignificant and sometimes even repulsive, the Algae in posterum project hopes, through collaboration with Atelier LUMA, to enhance this almost alchemical, even magical dimension of algae for the future of the creative field.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Martial Grin – Spectacle·s Museum
with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio
Spectacle·s Museum looks at the photographs of visitors in a museum space. Through a web atlas, this project paints a series of portraits in one of the most photographed museums in the world, the Louvre. Using images published on Instagram, the project classifies and groups them according to their formal and spatial specificities. Through Spectacle·s Museum, I approach the theme of the staging of the self, particularly in the museum space.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Soraya Camina – Per Aspera Ad Astra – Five Women Who Mapped the Cosmos
with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio
Per Aspera Ad Astra is a web-documentary that tells the story of five women astronomers who were in charge of discovering, calculating, classifying and mapping the cosmos between 1879 and 1979. This project aims to rehabilitate the crucial contribution made by women in STEM. In the early days, before the word “computer” was used to describe a machine, it was in actual fact used to describe a person, namely the women who made calculations and observations by hand. The “Harvard Computers” significantly contributed to astronomy and science by discovering many galaxies and establishing the stellar classification system that is still in use today. Nowadays, however, we speak very little about these five women; their work remains unknown, and their discoveries have often been attributed to the men who employed them. per-aspera-ad-astra.vercel.app
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Communication of an architecture
with Nicole Udry
Create a communication of a chosen building (a school, a religious space, an office building, a theater, etc.). Second year course of graphic design in context, centered on image creation and editorial design.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Isabel Garcia Argos – Voz
by Isabel Garcia Argos
Voz (voice in Spanish) is an audio-visual project that aims to make these voices heard by the public in order to raise awareness of the issue. Through four fictional yet likely stories, this series take us into the intimacy and feelings of women survivors. The narrative style and the visual universe contrast with the real cruelty of the images and language.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Guillaume Besson – Beyond the Matrix
by Guillaume Besson
This project is a documentation and analysis of surveillance equipment in contemporary society, using the airport as a metaphorical object.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Adeline Vermot – Victimes vs Héros
by Adeline Vermot
This project is an analysis of gender representation in contemporary popular cinema. The choice of films was based on the ones that were the most successful at the box office. I was interested to see the messages they conveyed, as they had been seen by a large number of people. The choice was also based on French cinema since Hollywood has already dealt with these issues a lot. To do this, a system was established to compare the six films with each other as well as the situation of men and women. The content is in the form of images and dialogues from these films and is supplemented with infographics and texts. The result shows how strong stereotypes still are and that being aware of them is a first step towards deconstructing them.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Michael Pica – Confessionnal
with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio
Confessionnal is a web app that enables users to anonymously confess their behaviour on social networks. With the advent of social media years ago, the behaviour of users varies. Unmentionable acts are sometimes committed on these platforms. This project is inspired by the Catholic confessional as we know it but is based on the digital era we live in. Users live the anonymous experience with a mask as participants or spectators. They confess orally and personalise their mask based on their age, the platform or the main subject of the confession. On the other hand, they can observe other masks and listen to the confessions of other users.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Rayane Jemaa – Is This the Middle East?
with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio
Is This the Middle East? investigates representation of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in a selection of video games. I am interested in the patterns, repetitive artefacts, locations and texts in games that claim to be set in the MENA region. These objects become archetypes. Are these photo-realistic environments also realistic in the scenes they depict or do they become another backdrop for war-related games? Using photogrammetry to reconstruct these environments, I address the implications of seeing an abundance of often over-simplified images of the Middle East, especially in a world where video games are becoming not only a global phenomenon, but also a means to encounter other cultures.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Communication of an architecture
with Nicole Udry
Create a communication of a chosen building (a school, a religious space, an office building, a theater, etc.). Second year course of graphic design in context, centered on image creation and editorial design.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Accrochage Photographique
with Laurence Bonvin
How can we move from the two-dimensionality of the image to the multi-dimensionality of the experience ? How can we introduce notions of space, volume, tactility and sensuality into images and the way they are presented ? If images can allow us to create new links with the world, how can we possibly move away from an essentially technically based vision, a perspectivist and anthropocentric vision ? How can we imagine and represent what a representation detached from our human point of view would be ? In our culture a separation has been established between culture and nature. This dichotomy has determined the way we see, understand and represent the world around us. How can we create images of the living, of "nature" that go beyond this distinction and this point of view ? Images that contribute to recreating a link with what is nonhuman: the plant, the mineral, the animal, the cosmic. What does an animal, a plant, an object, a tree, the earth feel and perceive ?
FILM STUDIES
Elisa Gómez Alvarez – Soraya Luna (direction)
with Pedro Pinho
A cinematographic necromancy calls the spectres of the past: by the means of VHS find the spectator submerges into the Berlin family's intimate play of the author's childhood. gomezalvarez@gmx.de http://www.elisagomezalvarez.com
FILM STUDIES
Nina Defontaine – Clémente (direction)
by Nina Defontaine
The portrait of Monique (my grandmother) as i accompany her in the great sorting of her objects (her ghosts) at her family house (Clémente). ninadefontaine@gmail.com https://cargocollective.com/ninaphotographies/cinematographie
FILM STUDIES
Coline Confort – Imperial (direction)
with Laurent Larivière
At dawn, a cannon shatters the silence. The horses gallop across the beaten ground. Eva, 21, wants to join the Imperial HorseGuards, a historical reenactment of a Napoleonic regiment reserved for men.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Pablo Bellon – Lockdown Memorial Archive
with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio
In 2020, with the emergence of Covid-19, people self-quarantined. For many this was an opportunity to reflect on their situation. Lockdown Memorial Archive enables anyone to share their story about the confinement and to become aware of the feelings of others. Through a web app, participants are invited to personalise an emblematic object and to link it to an account of their experience. The overall result thus constitutes an archive made up of several immersive memorials where one can relive this situation of isolation in a different way.
FILM STUDIES
Natasha Degrandi – Imperial (editing)
by Natasha Degrandi
At dawn, a cannon shatters the silence. The horses gallop across the beaten ground. Eva, 21, wants to join the Imperial HorseGuards, a historical reenactment of a Napoleonic regiment reserved for men.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Yael Sidler – Lasius Flavus
with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio
“Lasius Flavus” is an immersive and didactic experience developed in collaboration with the Museum of Zoology. Throughout the tour, visitors discover the world of the yellow ant, its habitat and perception of the world. This interactive VR project offers an interpretation of these various aspects to lead us to reflect on the relationship that each species has with its environment. Moreover, the exercise of thinking on a scale that is not ours can help us question our own future.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Nathan Vogel – relations.watch
with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Pauline Saglio
Conflicts of interests are often at the heart of issues like democratic or environmental crises. However, in today’s information landscape, we massively get and forget those bits of data. With an open and collaborative approach, relations.watch aims to summarise relations between people, companies, media, etc. so as to enable anyone to quickly discover potential conflicts of interests. One of the most challenging aspects of this project is to convey very dense semantic data in a visually simple and interactive way while staying as neutral as possible on highly political topics. relations.watch