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.
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.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Type Design BA2 – S2 2026
with Aurèle Sack
Second-year students were required to develop the whole alphabet for one typeface.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Editorial Design – BA2 S2 2026
with Diego Bontognali
As part of this editorial design course, students developed a research-based project focused on the selection and design of texts around a shared theme. Based on a curated set of sources, each project presents two editions with identical content, produced in both a large and a small format.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Visual Identity – BA2 S2 2026
with Adeline Mollard
As part of the visual identity course with Adeline Mollard, the students developed a visual identity based on a randomly drawn business card. By appropriating a graphic element and its title, each project offers a singular interpretation of it. Each proposal also involves the selection of a tool linked to the associated event (tattoo machine, sander, lithography equipment, etc.), used as a conceptual and graphic extension of the project. The identity is deployed across a range of formats, from business card to F4 size, including posters, flyers, business cards, as well as an animated poster.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Contextual Design – BA2 S2 2026
with Adeline Mollard
Genius Loci, or the spirit of the place, refers to the unique identity or essence of a location. In architecture, this principle suggests that the specific characteristics of a place should be reflected and extended in a design. In the case of the second-year graphic design students, they have applied this principle to communication projects focused on promoting or extending the identity of a particular place through design. Their work likely explores how to visually capture and communicate the essence of a space, using graphic design elements that resonate with the architectural features or history of the place.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Image Creation - Mirrored Motifs (ECAL × Chillon) - BA1 2025-2026
with Guy Meldem
As part of the ECAL x Chillon exhibition, which will take place at the eponymous castle, the students of the Bachelor in Graphic Design have created patterns inspired by the castle’s features. Under the supervision of Guy Meldem, they developed a variety of graphic systems. These patterns will be printed as hangings in the armory hall of Chillon Castle.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Dynamic Identity - 2026
with Angelo Benedetto
First-year students designed visual identities for fictional museums. As part of the Dynamic Display course led by Angelo Benedetto, this project led them to create graphic universes that that express the character of each imaginary exhibition site.
DIGITAL EXPERIENCE DESIGN
The Mind Reader Interface
with Gaël Hugo, Paul Lëon
The Mind Reader Interface shifts computing from the reactive to the proactive: from a system that obeys commands to one that anticipates them. Where smart environments cast their users as pilots issuing constant instructions, this project removes the friction of instruction altogether. Intention is no longer declared through a screen or a button. It is inferred. Reading context, habit and the signals of presence, the interface acts before it is asked. It sheds the form of the device to become a Ghost in the Room that senses rather than obeys. The user no longer pilots the space; they inhabit it. The system does not read thoughts, only traces, and stages the distance between anticipation and understanding: what we gain, and what we quietly surrender, when a space begins to act on our behalf.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Staged Photography – 2026
with Charlotte Krieger
Unseen This course introduces students to the creation of a seven-image series built around the theme Unseen. They will learn to combine set design, characters, and lighting to produce strong, coherent staged images. Through a practical and technical approach, the course develops their ability to conceive and manage a complete photographic project, direct models, work with natural and artificial light, and collaborate under conditions similar to professional editorial or commercial shoots. Students will refine their photographic vision while preparing for the creative and technical demands of the industry.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Analog Medium format workshop – 2026
with Anoush Abrar
Deconstructed Portrait The goal of this workshop, led by photographer Anoush Abrar, is to explore the meaning of the contemporary portrait. Working with the concept of the “deconstructed portrait,” the students created an image in pairs. The Digital Medium Format workshop week serves as an introduction to both photography equipment and specialized software.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Création cinématographique– 2026
with Orsola Valenti
Off-camera By exploring what lies outside the frame, students develop a sensitive and reflective approach to audiovisual creation. Throughout the semester, students are encouraged to reflect on the political and formal issues surrounding the moving image, as well as the relationship between the visible and the invisible.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Création photographique– 2026
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.
FILM STUDIES
Morgane Beslay – Le Mur (Directing)
by Morgane Beslay
Following their difficult separation, Eliane and Laure have to repaint a wall of the house they are leaving, a wall as full of their own history as that of others before them.
FILM STUDIES
Nafi Touré – Le Mur (Photography)
by Nafi Touré
Following their difficult separation, Eliane and Laure have to repaint a wall of the house they are leaving, a wall as full of their own history as that of others before them.
FILM STUDIES
Charlyne Genoud – Respirer une fois sur trois
by Charlyne Genoud
In group strength-training classes, people breathe in unison every day. Charlyne lifts weights alongside three retired women who love to sing. What if a cheerful gym could be the place to break our family curses?
FILM STUDIES
Jann Kessler – se métamorphoser ?
by Jann Kessler
How do I build healthy, equal relationships? An intimate cinematic-therapeutic journey of discovery.
FILM STUDIES
Floriane Roulin – Petites Bouées
by Floriane Roulin
During their father’s wedding preparations, Sophie and Mila are confronted with their childhood memories.
FILM STUDIES
Mathys Nouspikel – Capriccio
by Mathys Nouspikel
Arsène runs away before playing for his dying grandfather, but an unexpected encounter helps him find the courage to return.
FILM STUDIES
Robin Kaufmann – Sous ma peau
by Robin Kaufmann
The night Gabriel celebrates his abuser’s conviction, he is confronted with Lucien’s tenderness.
FILM STUDIES
Maéna Hirt – Pauvre Pauvre Timothy
by Maéna Hirt
Timothy disappears. Then Astride's friends vanish, and soon the entire town seems to fade away without explanation.
FILM STUDIES
Pauline Pichard – GLORYLAND
by Pauline Pichard
Last spring, unknown lights appeared in the sky above Lausanne. In a garden, the last fragment of an ordinary Eden, tales blur with rumours after a series of strange disappearances.
Design Research for Digital Innovation (EPFL+ECAL Lab)
Sofia Lelis – Èvokâ II
by Sofia Lelis
Èvokâ II is an interactive installation that invites visitors to the Cantonal and University Library of Fribourg to enter into dialogue with the archives. Through an AI-based conversational interface, a presence living within the collections gathers memories connected to the canton and, in return, reveals fragments, stories and traces of Fribourg's heritage. This design research project explores how digital archives can become more accessible and resonant, questioning what connects us to a collective identity: places, emotions, stories and lived memories. Developed with the Swiss Data Science Center and supported by the Swiss National Library, Èvokâ II transforms archival consultation into an intimate experience, between personal memory and shared history.
Design Research for Digital Innovation (EPFL+ECAL Lab)
Côme Brocas – MountResilience
by Côme Brocas
How can we facilitate dialogue, engagement, and decision-making in response to the challenges of water management and climate change in mountain regions? This replicable demonstrator from the European project MountResilience is the result of participatory and interdisciplinary research conducted in the heart of the Valais Alps. The web application brings together experts and the general public around three interconnected sections: relative indicators provide a shared overview of the situation in real time, participatory field observations foster engagement, and a catalog raises awareness of local solutions. The evaluative study of the tool identified several factors influencing engagement in the design of climate change adaptation solutions.
Design Research for Digital Innovation (EPFL+ECAL Lab)
Zeynep Erol – SWITCH – Sofra
by Zeynep Erol
Sofra is a culturally adaptive conversational agent that supports dietary behaviour change by understanding how people relate to food. Developed within the EU SWITCH project, it builds a personal food culture from photos, mind maps, and voice notes that users provide to represent their everyday practices, motivations, and heritage. This profile shapes the agent's tone and suggestions, moving guidance from generic to grounded in each person's context. Developed through three user studies, the project shows how cultural resonance makes dietary support more relevant, respectful, and engaging. Combining interaction design and AI prompt engineering, Sofra challenges universal approaches to health technology and advocates for systems that adapt to, rather than flatten, cultural differences.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Vittorio Franzolini – Still still
by Vittorio Franzolini
Still still investigates the legacy of Fascist-era architecture in Italy. Inspired by Futurist "parole in libertà", the title stems from the repetition of the same word, generating an ambiguity between stillness and movement. Produced between Milan and Rome using analogue photography, the project seeks to desacralize these buildings through close and displaced viewpoints, moving away from their monumental and celebratory representation. Walls and surfaces appear like skin marked by erosion, dust and traces of time, transforming symbols of power into fragile and vulnerable bodies. Still still reflects on the persistence of certain aesthetics of authority in the present and takes the form of a book and an installation printed in Comcolor.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Lee Eggenschwiler – Standard Values
by Lee Eggenschwiler
Standard Values explores the opaque economy of colored gemstones in Bangkok. Conceived as a visual investigation, this project focuses on the gray areas of this industry, capturing the precise moment when trust mechanisms and global flows transform a simple stone into a standardized ideal of luxury. The book confronts the raw materiality of the gems with the urban space, creating a dialogue between the facets of the crystals and the architecture of the skyscrapers to reveal their similarities and inclusions. Yet, the images also reveal a sense of solitude within an illusory opulence, moving between empty shops and anonymous bodies.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Farah Mirzayeva – ANOMALIES
by Farah Mirzayeva
Inspired by a background in chemistry, ANOMALIES explores the boundary between scientific imagery and visual construction. After photographing machines which process or store data in EPFL laboratories, the images are modified by using scanning as a tool of transformation, to alter, glitch and deform. The process mimics the machines themselves: the codified images are systematically rescanned to gain new materiality, they become textured, unstable, and paradoxically analogue. The installation recreates the skeleton of a microscope seen in a laboratory, becoming a modular photographic sculpture of metal. A book completes this project: through sequencing, zooms and accumulation, it mirrors data processing in order to reveal the immateriality and abstraction of scientific research.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Shiny Vallenas – The Money Shot Always Tastes Like Bunnies And Donuts
by Shiny Vallenas
The codes of pornography have profoundly reshaped the representation of women within contemporary imagery. From the porno chic aesthetic of the 2000s to the clean girl aesthetic that dominates social media today, the same close-ups and fragmented bodies continue to circulate. Desire, being inherent to the image itself, now takes on disguised forms in response to censorship, transforming into viral trends. This project combines staged photography and AI-generated imagery to reconstruct visual dispositifs drawn from porn casting videos, OnlyFans, and the language of advertising. By tracing formal correspondences between the body, the animal, and processes of objectification, it seeks to make visible what a continuous flow of images has taught us to stop seeing.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Léa Isoard – Almost Marble
by Léa Isoard
Almost Marble examines the circulation of contemporary female bodies within a visual and cultural landscape shaped by inherited representations. Using the Caryatids of the Acropolis as a reference, the project explores the persistence of ideals constructed through a masculine gaze, as well as the possibilities for their displacement. Within the Athenian labyrinth, portraits and architectural fragments come together to form a sensitive reading of a stratified city. The photographed figures can be understood as "displaced Caryatids": no longer bodies assigned to support a monument, but living presences that inhabit the city and constitute it from within.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Salomé Billato – Grosse
by Salomé Billato
Grosse is a photographic book that combines self-portraits, documentary images, and fictional images exploring the contemporary body. By reclaiming the word "grosse", a term marked by shame and stigma, this project questions beauty standards and their hold over our relationship to the body. It draws on the artist's personal experience with Wegovy, a weight-loss treatment that intensified constant monitoring of her body. Grosse explores a central contradiction: the criticism of these norms while participating in them. The book questions how far we are willing to reshape our bodies in order to conform to socially constructed ideals.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Rose Graf – EVERYTHING FALLS QUIET
by Rose Graf
There are moments no one sees. Not because they don't exist, but because no one ever really looks. EVERYTHING FALLS QUIET grew from an intimate memory, one of school bullying. Familiar places swallowed by an unnatural darkness, bodies sharing space without ever truly meeting, a tension that lingers without breaking. Between recollection and fiction, between the real and the dreamlike. A way of taking back what was once taken. Of holding still these invisible moments, and finally giving them a face.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Aline Savioz – I feel slightly off
by Aline Savioz
Born out of a period of introspection, I feel slightly off transforms invisible emotions such as anxiety and a loss of meaning into carefully constructed scenes. Through portraits, group scenes, and still lifes, familiar situations subtly shift toward the uncanny. Inspired by the concepts of the uncanny (Sigmund Freud) and the uncanny valley (Masahiro Mori), the images play on subtle shifts that create a tension between the everyday and the unsettling. Bringing together nine large-format photographs and an image printed on a floor mat, the installation offers a reflection on the relationship to control, anxiety, and the perception of reality, while seeking to make visible intimate experiences that are often shared but rarely expressed.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Ashley Schneiter – AMUL RAGAL
by Ashley Schneiter
AMUL RAGAL is a documentary photographic project dedicated to lamb, a practice deeply rooted in Senegal's cultural, social, and spiritual traditions. Through this work, the artist questions the photographic representation of the Black male body and the imaginaries associated with it. Senegalese wrestling offers a field where rituals, beliefs, and contemporary culture intersect. As a woman working in an almost exclusively male environment, the artist developed a gaze sensitive to the gestures, nuances, moments of waiting, and vulnerability that escape the spectacle. The use of a shallow depth of field turns blur into a narrative tool, conveying the uncertain boundary between reality, belief, and representation.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Antoine Genoud – Galé j'armayi
by Antoine Genoud
Galé j'armayi explores how the figure of the peasant is represented in Switzerland, where it is deeply intertwined with national identity. More broadly, the project invites viewers to question their relationship to an idealized and exploited past, as well as to the traditions to which they are attached, in order to reclaim them. Visually, this takes the form of a video piece and a series of self-portraits where pose, clothing, and objects combine to recreate traditional peasant imagery while introducing a certain dissonance in order to challenge it. Furthermore, the roles of men and women are played by the artist himself, questioning certain notions of gender and traditional, conservative values.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Auriane Nicollier – Everything Will Remain Except the House
by Auriane Nicollier
Everything Will Remain Except the House is a documentary project following the residents of a squatted building over the course of nearly a year. After their eviction, some found new places to live, while others were left homeless. The project explores how intimacy is shaped within temporary, collective, and precarious living spaces. Each occupied place must be adapted, shared, and reinvented. Through this instability, a sense of home is defined more by the relationships it fosters than by the space it occupies. Presented as a publication bringing together photographs and testimonies, Everything Will Remain Except the House preserves the memory of a place that has disappeared while offering a reflection on housing precarity, collective living, and mutual aid.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Colas Ravey – Un goût salé m'est resté en bouche
by Colas Ravey
The beach, in video games as in real life, is a place dear to the artist. It is a space where people, sensations, and moments of life intertwine. A place where people's identities and sexuality are at the mercy of the sun and the heat. Un goût salé m'est resté en bouche is a reminiscence of childhood, a time when video games were pixelated worlds where anything seemed possible, free from questions about self-image and love. Drawing inspiration from low-poly aesthetics, the project evokes a suspended moment where voyeurism, sunbathing, and flirting coexist. A moment where the artist becomes the avatar of a multi-purpose game, navigating between desire and freedom, intimate and public, in a quest for something that might be love.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Type Design BA3 – S1 25–26
with Aurèle Sack
The third-year students had to develop a typeface and digitize it.
PRODUCT DESIGN
ECAL AT THE FESTIVAL DES CABANES, VILLA MÉDICIS, ROME
with Camille Blin
For the 2026 Festival des Cabanes at the Villa Medici in Rome, students from the Master in Product Design were invited to develop a project related to the Villa's garden, in collaboration with the renowned Italian ceramics manufacturer Mutina. The Villa's gardens offer a rich historical and spatial context, conducive to exploring aesthetics, function, and interaction with visitors. Students had access to the entire Mutina catalogue (tiles, bricks, and other materials) to build their installations. The project was selected and mentored by the French designer Ronan Bouroullec, ECAL, Villa Medici and Mutina.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
A Matter of Frames - Workshop avec Vera van de Seyp
by Malik Ahmed, Alexander Anhorn, Melissa Appelon, Marc Auderset, Olivia Bindon, Baptiste Boulanger, Suriya Brambilla, Diego Buccelloni, Marta Casemi, Davia Ciccoli Trannoy, Alizée Clavien, Timoféi Cruz, Ethan Degano, Nora Dizeko, Andrea Domínguez Formet, Mathias Dugenne, Mathias Gelin, Tanguy Genier, Lila Gomez Gaillet, Juliana Granato, Xenia Grange, Bérangère Gremion, Helena Hell, Rocio Hernandez, Salomé Huwiler, Rebecca Indermühle, Kevin Jeangros, Nolan Latorre, Jose Pardo Pariente, Zachary Ramelet, Gabrielle Richard, Théo Rizzo, Alessia Rollini, Malcolm Semedo Barreto, Anastassia Siebold, Philippe Strässle Zuniga, Baptiste Sultana, Luna Tavernier, Margaux Tinguely
Traduire le mouvement en matière
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.
DIGITAL EXPERIENCE DESIGN
Ethical, Accessible and Mindful Design
with Irene Pereyra
Ethical, Accessible & Mindful Design is a one-week module that trains students to examine the ethical dimensions of design decisions. Through practice, students learn to design experiences that are inclusive, transparent, and considerate of their broader social impact. This semester, the module took low-vision accessibility as its central design constraint. Working under the brief Goodbye to All …, students were asked to guide a user through a permanent, irreversible, and non-negotiable farewell. Beyond WCAG compliance, the exercise required sustained attention to contrast across all interface states, legible typography, keyboard-only navigation, focus visibility, and layout integrity at both 100% and 300% zoom, without loss of hierarchy or readability.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Image Creation BA3 – S1 25–26
with Guy Meldem
Third-year students had to produce an edition over half a semester, discovering as their subject an event that appeared in the newspaper on the date of the first lesson.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Portfol.io
with David Liebermann, Maximilian Kiepe, Jana Reddemann
Hello World! Goodbye predictable, standardized and interchangeable web. Students questioned the conventions of the digital World, explored the Wide possibilities of the medium, and even invented new approaches to interact with the Web. And what better way to give web design meaning than through the students own portfolios, understood as expressions of attitude and personality. https://websites.ecal-mid.ch/
The Mechanics of Cinema in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
with Benoit Rossel
This research project by the Film Department at ECAL aims to assess the impact of artificial intelligence on cinema and film education.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
A Story for a Shape – Workshop avec Mélanie Courtinat
with Mélanie Courtinat
Ce workshop explore la paréidolie, notre capacité à projeter du sens et des émotions sur des formes abstraites. À partir d'une primitive géométrique (cube, sphère, cône...), matrice fondamentale de tout univers numérique, les étudiant·e·s en binômes doivent concevoir une expérience en réalité virtuelle. En s'appuyant sur une synchronisation précise entre l'espace physique et un environnement Unreal Engine, le projet transforme ces objets fixes en supports narratifs.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Endurance - 2025
with Laurence Bonvin
Take risks, experiment, and try out new approaches or techniques in relation to a current or past project, or their future graduation project. Encourage them to take a project or idea further by experimenting with methodology, technique, and production methods, rather than relying on familiar processes, solutions, know-how, or tried-and-true formulas.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Rationality/Expressivness - Carnal Verona Workshop
with Yanis Carnal, Raphaël Verona
The Swiss style, also known as the International Style, established itself as the symbol of a radical approach to graphic design and typography. It embodies an ideal of efficiency and rationality. Omnipresent more than half a century after its emergence, does it still hold the same relevance today? What is its influence on our imaginations and our practice? Doesn't Switzerland have other facets through which to communicate, and what new graphic and typographic languages could represent them?
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.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Film Production – 2026
with Julien Bourdeille
Événement Lumineux Through an in-depth exploration of light as a narrative and sensory medium, first-year students created a short film on the theme “Luminous Event.” This project allows them to learn how to manage a complete audiovisual project while mastering the tools of filming, framing, and camera movement.