FILM STUDIES
Donika Gashi – La vie de Lucy (Direction)
with Valentina Novati, Héléna Klotz
Lucy is a young Cro-Magnon woman, a descendant of Lucy the Australopithecus, who lives in a pre-historic, Stone Age, tribe.
FILM STUDIES
Hervé Ossent – The hole (Direction)
with Valentina Novati, Héléna Klotz
Guillaume, a young pig farmer, discovers that his father is indulging in bestiality.
FILM STUDIES
Loïc Pidoux – Betelgeuse (Direction)
with Valentina Novati, Héléna Klotz
Three young artists search for their place in the world, under the glow of supernova remnants.
FILM STUDIES
Camille Anker – Once there was a storm (Direction)
with Valentina Novati, Héléna Klotz
In the passenger seat, a young woman waits for the end of the road unfolding beyond the window.
FILM STUDIES
Pol Barrelet – Leave the hive (Direction)
with Valentina Novati, Héléna Klotz
Mila is tired of living in this small town and dreams of elsewhere. But leaving everything behind means even her closest friends.
FILM STUDIES
Léa Favre – Who goes hunting... (Direction)
with Valentina Novati, Héléna Klotz
Today, Lea is going in search of a subject for a documentary film. When she believes she's finally caught her prey, the roles end up being reversed. The hunter becomes the hunted.
FILM STUDIES
Maria Luiza Vaz – Where were you at night? (Direction)
with Valentina Novati, Héléna Klotz
Clara is a sixteen-year-old girl who lives alone with her mother in a small isolated house in the forest. Clara is full of vitality, but her depressive mother prevents her from breaking free. An encounter with a mysterious boy in the forest leads Clara to transgress her daily life.
FILM STUDIES
Arsène Fragnière – Cartilage (Direction)
with Valentina Novati, Héléna Klotz
At the end of the night, Gaël will abandon his group of friends. As the evening progresses, however, they realize that something is wrong.
FILM STUDIES
Benjamin Eggenberger – The Stork's Lair (Direction)
with Valentina Novati, Héléna Klotz
An alienating love between two beings who wish to have a child but cannot.
FILM STUDIES
Matteo Friberg – Death to the hunchbacks (Direction)
with Valentina Novati, Héléna Klotz
Knight Borboron is poisoned and wants to apologize to Hildegund before dying.
FILM STUDIES
Naïla Ebinger – Cartilage (Direction)
with Denis Jutzeler
For my diploma project, I did the cinematography for the bachelor film of my classmate Arsène Fragnière: Cartilage.
FILM STUDIES
Mégane Brügger – Mom dances (Direction)
with Valentina Novati, Héléna Klotz
What remains of a mother after years of domestic violence? What remains of her body, her dignity and her strength? Surely words, memory and a few dance steps that can still be passed down.
FILM STUDIES
Sara Dutch – Mife and Miso go boating (Direction)
with Elene Naveriani
In the near future, Xzir, a woman in her thirties, finds herself faced with an unwanted pregnancy. In the ultra-digital, techno-authoritarian society in which she lives, pregnancies are automatically entered in a national register and monitored by the state, abortions are banned. Xzir is going to take the illegal path of the DarkWeb to end her pregnancy, whatever the cost.
FILM STUDIES
Jonathan Daza Ospina – Silence (Direction)
with Elene Naveriani
A sound engineer records the sounds of a forgotten past in the jungles of the Colombian Pacific.
FILM STUDIES
Pablo Guscetti – Those who are no longer here (Direction)
with Elene Naveriani
Two women who have nothing in common must hide in a mountain refuge to escape a zombie attack.
FILM STUDIES
Theofanis Papadopoulos – Firelight (Direction)
with Elene Naveriani
Three siblings must keep two fires alive, to protect themselves from a monster that lives in the dark.
FILM STUDIES
Valentina Parati – Acciaio (Direction)
with Elene Naveriani
Through a metaphor with mechanical overtones, an unbroken chain of three situations, divergent and yet so connected by a single element: pulsating, living steel. A family car with a mom and her kid, a furious truck, flying cars. An endless lullaby of engines.
FILM STUDIES
Anna Joos – NIEDERURNEN, GL (Direction)
with Elene Naveriani
In a forgotten Swiss valley, an evil wind haunts the lives of former asbestos factory workers.
FILM STUDIES
Fei Fan – Fenni in Wonderland (Direction)
with Elene Naveriani
While wandering around Paris, Fenni, a Chinese girl, drifts between dream and reality.
FILM STUDIES
Loïs de Goumoëns – Open Countryside (Screenplay)
with Anne Brouillet
This is the first draft of a feature film script, written over the two years of the MA programme.
FILM STUDIES
Loris Ciaburri – Lux Vitae (Screenplay)
with Anne Brouillet
This is the first draft of a feature film script, written over the two years of the MA programme.
FILM STUDIES
Antoine Scalese – Open Countryside (Screenplay)
with Anne Brouillet
This is the first draft of a feature film script, written over the two years of the MA programme.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Sara De Brito Faustino – Toute petite et vilaine
by Sara De Brito Faustino
“This project presents the home as a place where uncanniness and vernacular commonness exist side by side. Being an intimate space, a home should be a restful and secure place. However, mine has been the scene of some painful events. Today, I see this house as threatening. Uncomfortable and dysfunctional, it bears the scars of the past. In my photographs, I revisit those memories and reclaim my body. My tiny dioramas express my young self’s ideals opposed to the wounds I currently bear. Constructing, deconstructing, objects become bodies, whereas my being feels deformed and petrified. Toute petite et vilaine (“Tiny and Ugly”) creates an antagonistic tension between appealing visuals and disturbing details.“
DESIGN FOR LUXURY & CRAFTSMANSHIP
Céline Witzke – From Fabric to Glass: Capturing the Movement of Textiles in Experimental Glassmaking
by Céline Witzke
This project draws inspiration from the world of fashion, specifically the organic movements, volumes and textures found in textiles, and explores how these elements unintentionally create soft forms. In collaboration with Swiss glass manufacturer Niesenglass, a collection of multipurpose glass objects has been created, showcasing craftsmanship in a new light.
DESIGN FOR LUXURY & CRAFTSMANSHIP
Shan Yu Kuan – BASUANN
by Shan Yu Kuan
BASUANN draws inspiration from the image of traditional Asian rattan/bamboo chairs. Its name echoes the pronunciation of the Taiwanese meaning “tie with cords”. Comprised of seven pieces of spiral ducts, BASUANN is assembled using mortise and tenon joints to connect the sitting part with the legs part. It is further reinforced by cords that securely bind the stool together. BASUANN seamlessly blends contemporary furniture design with the evocative imagery of Asian traditional craftsmanship, showcasing the aesthetic of minimalistic design.
DESIGN FOR LUXURY & CRAFTSMANSHIP
Charitini Gkritzali – Topology of a Body
by Charitini Gkritzali
Deriving inspiration from 20th century orthopaedic braces, Topology of a Body is a series of body jewellery items that closely conform to the human anatomy and resemble the body’s structural elements. Each piece is composed by solid geometrical shapes and organic curves that are created with silver or steel wire. The thickness of the wire is altered in a dynamic rhythm, highlighting the morphology of the body. The metal structure, which is carefully designed to envelop the human figure, ultimately takes on a sculptural form. Just like orthopaedic braces, the pieces of jewellery are designed to allow the body to move, yet seem to keep it in a constant state of immobility. This paradox eventually raises a question: do these objects enable or restrain the body’s movements?
DESIGN FOR LUXURY & CRAFTSMANSHIP
Marine Col – ROPY
by Marine Col
Ropy is a seriously playful stool that plays with the past. Designed in a single, light stroke, this object draws its charm from the reuse of materials. Old naval ropes from the port of Lausanne, their colours tarnished by time, serve as raw material and become precious material once the object has been made.
DESIGN FOR LUXURY & CRAFTSMANSHIP
Anaïs Sulmoni – IVORIA
by Anaïs Sulmoni
Once prized and valued by craftspeople, bone is now perceived as dirty and worthless. Yet, it is still widely used by cosmetics and food industries. It has appealed to me for many years because of its similarity to ivory and because of its living aspect, even though it represents death. Drawing on the abundance of this organic waste, I set out to recreate the prestige of ivory. I discovered the potential of bone as glue and powder, applied to different supports: solid wood, wood shavings and fabrics. The research book and models highlight bone, which presents new aesthetic and structural possibilities and acts as the first step towards reconciliation with this precious material.
PRODUCT DESIGN
Chiara Torterolo – MedGum
with Camille Blin, Augustin Scott de Martinville
MedGum: Effective Alternative to Traditional Drug Delivery Systems Chewing gums are recognised by scientists and medical researchers as a highly effective alternative to conventional drug administration methods like pills, tablets and capsules. MedGum is a research-driven project that integrates food production, medical research and design, to develop a range of functional gums with additional health benefits. By designing the gum and its structure, it becomes possible to enhance the effectiveness of the medication, improving the speed and dynamics of absorption of active ingredients. Tailored to specific diseases such as stomach disorders, allergies, migraines and oral injuries, each MedGum, together with a new packaging, offers patients a discreet and convenient way of taking their medication.
Design Research for Digital Innovation (EPFL+ECAL Lab)
Rémi Opalinski – Photobook Uncovered
by Rémi Opalinski
Photobook Uncovered is an interactive installation which was developed in collaboration with the Museum for Photography – Photo Elysée. The design research project aims to enhance the comprehension of photobooks among a diverse audience. Through this immersive experience, visitors can navigate a curated collection of 300 photobooks, discovering intriguing connections based on layout similarities. By leveraging cutting-edge technologies, the installation offers a unique and engaging way to interact with the photobooks, revealing insights into the relationships between the different works.
Design Research for Digital Innovation (EPFL+ECAL Lab)
Lucie Houel – Things That Talk
by Lucie Houel
Museum exhibitions traditionally present a multitude of objects grouped by theme or typology. While each of them is accompanied by a brief description of their origins, exhibitions rarely delve into the narratives surrounding each work. Things That Talk is a research project initiated by the LHST, which focuses on the exhibition of a single object and its multiple associated narratives. The final exhibition showcases a digital fresco that combines archival images and original content, which visitors can explore and animate using interactive spotlights. These interactions reveal hidden connections between the narratives and contemporary issues, allowing visitors to generate their own understanding of the themes addressed and to engage in a critical reflection on history.
FINE ARTS
Juri Bizzotto – Shy Opener, Transfarmer Miniconcert
by Juri Bizzotto
Shy Opener, Transfarmer Miniconcert consists of a live set and presentation of the first single + video clip Shy Opener, made for the Transfarmer Series project. The concert stage is transformed into a window into the world of Transfarmer, where sound, performance and stage elements recreate the bucolic ecosystem of a rediscovered periphery. Transfarmer is a long-term research project, which is committed to creating intersectional critical thinking with respect to the condition of queer, trans* subjectivities in the rural context – imagining metamorphoses of them and their landscape. The practical project includes drawings, texts, sound compositions, videos and props, and aims to produce an EP that will narrate the cosmovision of the character of Transfarmer.
FINE ARTS
Simon Colliard – Celle-ci je voulais la chanter au bord du gouffre
by Simon Colliard
Celle-ci Je Voulais la Chanter au Bord du Gouffre talks about having dreams and getting lost in the process. Celle-ci Je Voulais la Chanter au Bord du Gouffre is what remains when you have been looking within for too long. Celle-ci Je Voulais la Chanter au Bord du Gouffre is a 17-minute musical performance that tells a fragment of a story.
FINE ARTS
Sofia Fresey Angelopoulou – Juggler
by Sofia Fresey Angelopoulou
Juggler is an installation that consists of four large prints on micro-perforated tarpaulins, which are suspended from the ceiling. Viewers are welcome to walk around them and appreciate their see-through qualities. In many instances the juggler shares its identity with the magician, the jester and the fool. It is a duality: folly and non-folly, order and disorder, a joke and a warning. It is an entity that creates amusement with implements and in some cases with a physically deformed body. Through that, it generates patterns that describe the bizarre. Combinations of incompatibility, fantasy and reality, caricature and plausibility, alogicalness and hyperbolism. A big part of this project consists of images generated by an AI trained with pictures of freaks in sideshows.
FINE ARTS
Yoonjae Lee – Umwelten: Four Humans
by Yoonjae Lee
Umwelt (pl. Umwelten) refers to the world as it is experienced by a particular organism. This installation visualises subtle differences in the Umwelt of four human beings. Eight live streaming cameras face one LED through bespoke camera filters that are shaped based on four individuals’ corneas. Specifically, the four individuals here are Yoonjae Lee herself and people she cares for. She tries to understand the fundamental differences between her dear ones and herself by discovering the morphological differences in each vision. By focusing on the fact that each person’s perception is different due to their bodily differences, before their experiences, this work questions the implicit agreement and undisclosed biases in visual arts that assume everyone sees an artwork in the same way.
FINE ARTS
Claudia Mangone – Diagrams
by Claudia Mangone
This series of drawings is the result of a process in which the amount of information is continuously dosed. Communication is partially silenced; the structure of the shapes is blurred and lost, like a clouded mind or a hidden secret. Breaths in the room or manifestation of thoughts, they represent nothing more than what comes to the eye; the work thus becomes malleable under the gaze of the viewer, highlighting the unspoken. Made on paper, cut out, reassembled and then veiled by the milky surface of plexiglass, their manifestation is elusive. The colours are calibrated according to the surface’s capacity to hold or enhance them. The three pivots that support the drawings move around the four sides to find points of stability.
FINE ARTS
Sebastien Rück – Jeanne’s Promdress
by Sebastien Rück
My project is a reflection on how to showcase a series of drawings. Jeanne’s Promdress was created with the same energy I would have put into making my own prom dress. I sought to create a space, a cocoon for my drawings – a place that compels visitors to linger, take a moment, peek inside and discover a selection of drawings resulting from an intimate sketchbook production, made in the living space that is the bedroom. I used different materials such as the tulle of a mosquito net or a piece of muslin fabric (100% polyester), wire, a metal circle and a hanging rod. I sewed everything myself, hence the title, Promdress.
FINE ARTS
Clara Sipf – Outlaw History: Bird Invasion
by Clara Sipf
A couple of days ago, the birds flew into the city. Enormous flocks of all varieties of birds, plenty of crows, seagulls and sparrows. The sky became dark. Determined and angry, they swooped down on the panicked masses. Greedily they pecked the flesh of living bodies; the big birds ripped whole shreds out of them. I spotted one that the woodpeckers, with their rapid hammering movements, had carefully severed from the neck including the spinal bones and the head had rolled dully down a small slope, meeting its end in the roadside ditch. The judges must have lingered in the courthouse for some more time until a falcon threw itself like a martyr through the colourfully decorated church window and herded them out.
TYPE DESIGN
Lana Soufeh – Toujan Display: Contextual Arabic Typeface
with Kai Bernau, Matthieu Cortat
Today, most typographic design is done in Latin script and type design software is geared towards Western scripts. Toujan is a contextual Arabic typeface that aims to explore the potential of this software to reintegrate versatility and connectivity in Arabic script, while preserving its dynamic nature. It is inspired by the Tawqii’ style, a hybrid of thuluth and naskh calligraphy and features ligatures that enhance the visual allure of the text but also serve a functional purpose, optimising the spacing and improving the text flow. Toujan pushes the boundaries of Arabic type by reintroducing one of its unique features, i.e. that of connecting all words in a sentence with a series of swashes that link the last letter of each word to the first letter of the following word.
FINE ARTS
Fanny Dunning – Figures in a landscape
by Fanny Dunning
thinking of sculptures in a big garden, on acres of land popping up like hills but hills with crowns of horns here function follows form. it has built this as a sculpture. then installed its mirrors. thinking of sculptures in a big garden people inviting artists to come and stay
FINE ARTS
Tianchang Gu – Papers, please
by Tianchang Gu
The title of my graduation work comes from the video game of the same name and is the sequel to my thesis “Renens Palace”, an autofiction based on a dystopian future. In this fiction, the “self”, a former immigrant in Europe, becomes an immigration officer. How can writing be transformed into performance? The observed becomes the observer. The formerly oppressed blends into the system and becomes a person of authority. Bureaucratic gestures turn into choreography. Official documents become poems. Administrative motifs and symbols of power turn into visual aesthetics. These are the questions I contemplate during this creative process. All these strangely romanticised and anxiety-inducing elements evoke a reality we don’t always want to confront.
FINE ARTS
Yann Fankhauser – Étendard du marcheur
by Yann Fankhauser
This project is a print on a PVC tarpaulin (2500 mm x 1200 mm) of 18 silhouettes in boxes forming a black and white checkerboard. The development of the project was done from hand-made sketches, then digitised with Illustrator and arranged in a checkerboard. These sketches of silhouettes were made through various processes: 1) the modification of an initial silhouette to create a new one, 2) the juxtaposition of several silhouettes with each other, and 3) by illustrating a new angle of a silhouette already created. The concept revisits the idea of a motor-racing finish flag, transforming it into an endless journey, playing on the boundary between the figurative and the abstract in the image of pareidolia.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Matteo Angelé – If I Could Tell You/Se Potessi Dirtelo
by Matteo Angelé
This reappropriation project attempts to question the influence of context and medium by reusing pornographic images from homosexual magazines of the 1980s – a decade marked by the discovery of AIDS. Originally created for purely pornographic purposes, these images, representing bodies devoid of movement and stemming from bondage culture, describe the male archetype as characterised by Rudy Lemcke in A History of Violence: “Born and shaped by violence (…), we exist in a world where these dynamics of power and control are already operating for, with and against us. The effects of violence are a part of who we are.”
PHOTOGRAPHY
Aniket Godbole – A Place I Call Home
by Aniket Godbole
Growing up as an immigrant, my notion of “otherness” was profoundly connected with my idea of self – never fully Nigerian in Nigeria or Indian in India. This series explores my understanding of home as a third culture child, collating a narrative of my life that revisits memories of my youth through reimagined constructions of my everyday life. Settling in a new city never felt strange but with time a feeling of uncertainty lingered when I considered what I could actually call home. Featuring layered journal entries and subtracted and multiplied images from my archives, these collages tell a delicate story of a life in transit. I link up with a past that I have never fully experienced. Traditions, thoughts and realities guide a reflection on my childhood and how I experienced growing up in a strange new world that I now call home.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Benjamin Freedman – Positive Illusions
by Benjamin Freedman
Positive Illusions is a photobook that depicts a series of childhood memories constructed using CGI. The resulting uncanny still lives, imagined from the perspective of a child, evoke a strange family presence in photo-realistic environments. Inspired by the nature of memory and simulation, I have based my scenes on what I could remember and used a phenomenological approach to fill in the blanks. Revisiting the past using CGI technology to re-stage events creates a unique flattening of the past and present – a process of pseudo visual archaeology. Some images in the series are repeated but with slight alterations, revealing the surrealist process of fabricating them and underscoring the phenomenon of distortion that is inherent to memory.
PRODUCT DESIGN
Matteo Dal Lago – Natura Molta
with Camille Blin, Augustin Scott de Martinville
Marble, a popular resource worldwide, holds special significance in Carrara, Tuscany, where around 4 million tons are annually extracted. Extraction leads to the production of significant amounts of marble slurry, a dense mixture of dust and water. Proper management of this waste is crucial to prevent environmental pollution. With a focus on sustainable resource utilisation, my project seeks to upcycle this waste into a valuable resource. In collaboration with local companies, I spent most of the semester conducting on-site work in Carrara. The research conducted aims to highlight the potential of marble slurry as a valuable resource rather than waste material. The outcome presented features a collection of material samples and a bench designed and crafted entirely from marble slurry.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Shania Soares – Alma
with Stephane Halmai-Voisard, Christian Spiess, Carolien Niebling
Alma revolutionises beauty routines for seniors and individuals with arthritis or limited dexterity. Every customer deserves to feel pampered and confident, regardless of their circumstances. The Alma set includes three makeup brushes, a mascara, a lipstick and a makeup palette. The project was designed in collaboration with seniors facing fine motor skill issues, ensuring ease of use.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Fumi Omori – Girl Talk
by Fumi Omori
Girl Talk is an immersive virtual reality installation that explores the concept of multicultural identities and the idea of home. The project presents a curated collection of self-portraits featuring cyber avatars from Japanese, Korean and Korean-American backgrounds. Through my exploration of diversity, I have come to realise that embracing different cultural expressions is not merely a question of adaptation; it is a nuanced and intricate process of discovering the intrinsic values within each culture. With Girl Talk, I aim to share my own experiences and convey the journey of navigating between feelings of confusion and the power of inclusivity, while simultaneously grappling with the challenges of trilingual identities in this interconnected world.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Valerie Geissbühler – Soft Matter in Interwoven Worlds
by Valerie Geissbühler
“Soft Matter in Interwoven Worlds is a multifaceted installation that brings together narratives focusing on the potato. These stories retrace the tuber’s journey from Peru, its birthplace, to Switzerland. A soft matter is an entity that is perceived as unheroic and taken for granted. Instead of reducing the potato to a food plant, I see it as a resilient carrier of life as well as a creature. The boundaries between endings and beginnings blur as I navigate the ambiguity of birth, growth, death and loss. I merge ancestral knowledge and autofictional imagery by moving among multiple perspectives, territories and times, my bicultural identity and womanhood. All this brings me back to the roots of it all and leaves me to wonder: did I raise you or did you give birth to me?“
TYPE DESIGN
Minjong Kim – Amateur
with Kai Bernau, Matthieu Cortat
Amateur is a serif typeface that synthesises the calligraphic features derived from historical research. It evokes a niche sanctuary for a forgotten genre, exuding a sense of elegance. Inspired by the letterforms of early antique German models, Amateur cleverly plays with a distinctive form of horizontality, simultaneously revealing untamed strokes and meticulously crafted details. The uniform text styles provide robust, harmonised textures for optimal readability, while the display styles amplify the expressive qualities of each letter to the extreme, fearlessly embracing deliberate imperfections that blur conventional type systems and showcase captivating aesthetics.