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Course

Know-how

Years

2006 2024
Photographic Editions

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photographic Editions

with RVB Books/Matthieu Charon & Rémi Faucheux

Using pre-produced images, the students created one or more book models. How do you transform a series of photographs into a book? The Photographic Editions course introduces students to the selection of images, their order, format, graphics, ink, paper and binding. It addresses the specificities of the book as a medium and as a market.

BURNING CORSO - Thomas Mailaender

PHOTOGRAPHY

BURNING CORSO - Thomas Mailaender

with Thomas Mailaender

In the spring of 2024, Thomas Mailaender and the students of the ECAL Bachelor in Photography entered the ruins of the club with the intention of making it resonate once again. Between archaeology, documentary research, and imaginative speculations, the group of adventurers crafted a surprising exhibition path blending mold and glitter, ashes and glamour. For one night, the Corso was filled with explosive sounds and images in a fiery tribute to the nights of Renens.

Fine Art 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.

Pratique photographique

PHOTOGRAPHY

Pratique photographique

with Maxime Guyon

"Extraordinary Daily Commodities": Everyday Objects What if the objects around us were not mere tools, but autonomous entities with their own essence? Inspired by Graham Harman's Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO), this semester invited students to explore objects from a fresh perspective. Freed from the shadow of our consciousness, they take a place equal to that of humans, animals, and plants. Guided by Maxime Guyon, second-year photography students were encouraged to rediscover what "banal" truly means and dive into a reflection on the place and sensitivity of objects in the contemporary world.

Blue jeans

PHOTOGRAPHY

Blue jeans

with Philippe Jarrigeon, Philippe Jarrigeon

This year, a unique workshop invited students to explore the relationship between an object and its image. By delving into the material properties, history, symbolism, and multiple representations of an iconic object, they sought to understand the aura that defines it. The subject of this first edition? The blue jean. From a simple utilitarian garment to a global symbol of style, the blue jean transcends generations and cultures. Throughout the semester, students were tasked with creating a photographic project or video that both questions and celebrates this emblematic object.

ECAL × JEAN PAUL GAULTIER: SPORT - CORPS

PHOTOGRAPHY

ECAL × JEAN PAUL GAULTIER: SPORT - CORPS

with Florence Tétier, Nicolas Coulomb

SPORT - CORPS : Jeux Olympiques et Paralympiques The project is based on the theme of the body, with a view to staging physical effort.  The recent context of the Olympic and Paralympic Games logically frames the choice of sport as an aesthetic means of highlighting different forms of bodily expression. The choice of discipline could be classic, out-of-games or even imaginary. The students worked around a certain vision of physical effort, movement, constraint, a form of discipline, or even joy.

Video

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.

Fine Art Photography

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.

Fine Art Photography

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.

Staged Photography

PHOTOGRAPHY

Staged Photography

with Charlotte Krieger

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the creation and management of a complex photographic project involving sets, characters and lighting. The theme is free.

Workshop Digital Medium Format

PHOTOGRAPHY

Workshop Digital Medium Format

with Anoush Abrar

Beauty shot The week-long Medium format digital workshop is both an introduction to shooting equipment and dedicated software. Students worked in groups to produce portrait images.

Applied Photography

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.

Video

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.

Service Design - 2024

GRAPHIC DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

Service Design - 2024

with Angelo Benedetto, Vincent Jacquier, Pauline Saglio, Calypso Mahieu

During the Service Design course, the 3rd year of the Graphic Design, Photography and Media & Interaction Design bachelors had to create multi-media projects. A collaboration of the Visual Communication department which had as subject the SDGs (*Sustainable Development Goals). The theme was called "For a good cause, make the SDGs a reality" and its objective was to allow students to develop a cause that is close to their hearts. Each project consists of at least two different media, one primary and one secondary. These projects could take any form that the students deemed relevant, be it a website, editions, posters, a video sequence or virtual reality.

SYNC SCREEN

GRAPHIC DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

SYNC SCREEN

with Charlotte Krieger, Jean-Vincent Simonet, Florian Pittet (Sigmasix), Vincent Jacquier, Julien Gurtner, Matthieu Minguet, Cédric Duchêne, EPFL+ECAL Lab, Giacomo Bastianelli

For a week, the first-year visual communications students worked on an installation consisting of 15 screens, accompanied by a 360° sound system developed by EPFL+ECAL Lab. This chandelier, five metres in diameter and suspended from a height of three metres, served as a support for their experiments. Using music specially composed and spatialised for the occasion, the students explored the dynamics of sound both visually and in movement.

PRATIQUE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE

PHOTOGRAPHY

PRATIQUE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE

with Nicolas Poillot

The "Commission & Photography" course aims to conceptualize and produce visual content for an editorial series, emphasizing applied photography and collaboration with an Art Director. It allows students to explore various photographic territories such as editorial, documentary, fashion, still life, and fiction. Objectives include understanding editorial commissions, conceptualizing and presenting ideas, as well as effectively collaborating with an Art Director. Students are required to produce a series of images while adhering to the given theme and constraints, while also developing preliminary research, a structured methodology, series architecture, and finding solutions to creative problems encountered. The theme involves each student selecting and photographing three personal objects that are particularly meaningful to them.

Photographic revelation

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.

Fine Art Photography

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.

PROJECTIONS XXL

GRAPHIC DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

PROJECTIONS XXL

with Sami Benhadj, Vincent Jacquier

An immersive and magnetic visual environment, created by ECAL students, illuminates the facades of the mudac and Photo Elysée building. As part of an interdisciplinary project within the Visual Communication department of ECAL, students in the Photography, Graphic Design and Media & Interaction Design Bachelors programs developed immersive video projects designed to adorn the facades of Photo Elysée.

Anthracite

GRAPHIC DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

Anthracite

by Emma Grosu, Seraphine Sallin-Mason, Rebecca Alfandary

The Anthracite project aims to raise public awareness about the dangers of light pollution, which threatens the survival of nocturnal insects and impacts biodiversity in Switzerland. Through a carefully crafted edition blending scientific outreach and photography, the project strikes a delicate balance between poetry and urgency. Anthracite also takes shape in two additional formats: a visual installation made up of striking images, and a teaser video. These mediums of awareness immerse the audience by adopting the perspective of an insect, inviting viewers to directly experience the effects of human-caused pollution. Ultimately, the project seeks to inspire greater protection for the vulnerable insects at risk.

Workshop Photographic chamber

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.

BLI × ECAL

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.

Fine Art Photography

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.

Video

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.

Staged Photography

PHOTOGRAPHY

Staged Photography

with Charlotte Krieger

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the creation and management of a complex photographic project involving sets, characters and lighting. The theme is free.

Images and movement

PHOTOGRAPHY

Images and movement

with Olivia Schenker

During one semester, the students made a very short film on the theme of Simulations. They acquired fundamental notions in the narrative, visual, and conceptual development of a video production.

Workshop Photographic chamber

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.

Magazine - 2023

GRAPHIC DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

Magazine - 2023

with Anouk Schneider Agabekov, Chi-Long Trieu

As part of the magazine course led by Anouk Schneider and Chi-Long Trieu, 2nd-year Visual Communication students had the opportunity to design a magazine during the second semester. Students were encouraged to explore their artistic freedom at all stages of creation, whether it be in terms of format, paper choice, binding, layout, illustrations, text, or typography. In this course, the magazine can take shape through various forms of illustrations, such as photography, reproduction, contextualization, drawing, 3D, etc. The focus is on the artist's vision and the methods used to bring it to life. Students take on multiple roles as editor, curator, and architect, covering responsibilities such as art director, designer, photographer, stylist, illustrator, typographer, editor-in-chief, and editorial assistant. This course highlights contemporary editorial design by exploring the narrative potential of a well-structured content sequence.

Photographic Essays

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.

Photographic Hanging

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?

Photographic Editions

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photographic Editions

with RVB Books/Matthieu Charon & Rémi Faucheux

Using pre-produced images, the students created one or more book models. How do you transform a series of photographs into a book? The Photographic Editions course introduces students to the selection of images, their order, format, graphics, ink, paper and binding. It addresses the specificities of the book as a medium and as a market.

Révélation Photographique

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.

PRATIQUE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE

PHOTOGRAPHY

PRATIQUE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE

with Nicolas Poillot

By conceptualizing and producing the visual content for a magazine, themed - RESISTANCE - the students approached the notion of applied photography in a practical, creative and professional way in close collaboration with an Art Director.

Création photographique

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.

PRATIQUE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE

PHOTOGRAPHY

PRATIQUE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE

with Maxime Guyon

"Sculpture" is an intentionally broad theme to give this semester project in order to stimulate experimentation and freedom of realization. Sculpture is an artistic medium that allows for the realization of volume forms forms in volume thanks to innumerable techniques that have been used since the Paleolithic era to our contemporary society. This is an ambitious project where each student will have to complete a series of images highlighting their creations through advanced techniques of composition and light in the studio. Creating a sculpture is for some artists, for others it is a spontaneous way to elaborate a body of spontaneous way to develop a body of work.

Le livre d’artiste - 2022

GRAPHIC DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

Le livre d’artiste - 2022

with Anouk Schneider Agabekov, Chi-Long Trieu

As part of the publishing course led by Anouk Schneider and Chi-Long Trieu, 2nd year Visual Communication students had the opportunity to design an artist's book during the first semester. This book project stands out for its contemporary approach aimed at creating an editorial object that harmoniously integrates form and content in the current context of the editorial landscape. Students were encouraged to exploit their artistic freedom at all levels of creation, whether in terms of format, choice of paper, binding, layout, illustrations, text or typography. As part of this course, the artist's book can take shape through various illustration modalities, such as photography, reproduction, contextualization, drawing, 3D, etc. The emphasis is on the author's artistic vision and the means implemented to realize it. Students take on multiple roles as editor, curator and architect, covering the responsibilities of artistic director, designer, photographer, stylist, illustrator, typographer, editor-in-chief, and editorial secretary. This course highlights contemporary editorial design by exploring the narrative potential of a sequence of controlled content.

Redesign 2022

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

Redesign 2022

with Giliane Cachin

As part of the course given by Giliane Cachin, 1st year students are required to produce an edition by examining the different axes that make it up. The course offers a study of various grid systems and the fundamentals of micro-typography. During the semester, students will look for the best way to structure and arrange the content they have chosen (or which has been assigned to them, depending on the semester's data). Some essential rules to know in terms of printing and bindings will be reviewed at the end of the semester, in order to bring the conceptualized object to life.

Service Design - 2023

GRAPHIC DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

Service Design - 2023

with Angelo Benedetto, Vincent Jacquier, Pauline Saglio

During the service design course, the 3rd year of the Graphic Design, Photography and Media & Interaction Design bachelor's degree programs realized multi-media projects. A collaboration of the Visual Communication department with the theme of SDGs (*Sustainable Development Goals). The theme named "For a good cause, make the SDGS a reality" aims to develop a cause close to the heart of the different student groups. Each project is composed of at least two different supports, one primary and one secondary. The projects could therefore take any form the students deemed relevant, be it a website, editions and posters, a video sequence, or even virtual reality.

Photographie et arts plastiques

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photographie et arts plastiques

with Natacha Lesueur

Based on projects developed around the theme "Trompe L'oeil and Simulacra", the students developed a personal and in-depth work over an entire semester.

ECAL × JEAN PAUL GAULTIER: Under Your Smell

PHOTOGRAPHY

ECAL × JEAN PAUL GAULTIER: Under Your Smell

with Milo Keller, Florence Tétier, Nicolas Coulomb, Calypso Mahieu

The exhibition Under Your Smell offers a hypnotic and immersive experience in Jean Paul Gaultier's headquarters by imagining new definitions of beauty and body expression. Under the direction of Florence Tétier and Nicolas Coulomb, 3rd year Bachelor Photography students brought to life the brand's iconic perfumes through an immersive photographic experience. In the first season, with the complicity of Claude Emmanuelle Gajan Maull, the young photographers have fluidified the iconic bottles with their gendered silhouettes — Le Mâle, Le Classique, Le Beau and La Belle — in a fresh LGBTQIA+ perspective. With this upcoming season, the project evolves around the Scandal fragrance, with the creation of still lives in which the liquid, dry and organic contrasting textures evoke the essence of the perfume, its bottle design and its complexities. Through staging, the perfumes become the backdrop for stories of transgression and fantastical projections. In addition to monumental fabric prints, giant image-cushions welcome the public to lay down and celebrate gender fluidity and the ever changing definitions of beauty and self expression.

Photographic revelation

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photographic revelation

with Laurence Bonvin

Stammering This involves taking an idea, a project in progress or a project that has already been completed but not satisfactorily, and pushing it further, both from a conceptual and/or aesthetic point of view, as well as from a production point of view. To experience what can be improved in a project compared to a first realisation. Revisiting a classic. It is also about testing ideas, taking risks, pushing a process further, experimenting.

Photographic Editions

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photographic Editions

with RVB Books/Matthieu Charon & Rémi Faucheux

Starting from the premise that the book constitutes both an alternative practice to the exhibition and an alternative exhibition practice - alternative exhibition practices insofar as the book and the printed word are essentially modes of visibility of art; alternative practices to the exhibition because this means of visibility is very different from what is usually called an exhibition - we consider the book to be the medium that is perfectly suited to soon-to-be-graduated photographers.

Photographic installation

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photographic installation

with Marco Poloni

The Future, Inverted, or: Avoiding Stupidity Produce a visual and sound image device - moving and still images, objects, sounds and texts - that articulates a future and your model for thinking about it. This future can be possible, probable or preferred, personal or social.

Création photographique

PHOTOGRAPHY

Création photographique

with Natacha Lesueur

The students develop a project over the whole semester, on a freely chosen subject, by submitting it regularly to the critical eye and advice of the professor. Argumentation and analysis are stimulated. The aim is to examine the issues involved in photography as an author and to develop a personal expression, which could potentially lead to the students' diploma work. Particular attention is paid to the argumentation of the work, at the different stages of its development.

Photographie et Art plastiques

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photographie et Art plastiques

with Natacha Lesueur

Based on projects around a common theme, the students develop a personal and in-depth work over the entire semester. The project must be developed, clarified, modified if necessary, and enriched throughout the semester, as the students conduct research, reflections, and experiments, and as they consult with the professor. During these regular consultations, the students address the various aspects related to the conception, production and realization of a photographic work...

Photographie et Art plastiques

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photographie et Art plastiques

with Milo Keller

The course aims to develop a particular knowledge and sensitivity for all types of light. It invites the students to free creation, to the autonomy of elaboration and realization of a personal project.

Ciné-photographie

PHOTOGRAPHY

Ciné-photographie

with Marco Poloni

Projects realized by the second year class of the Bachelor of Photography, within the framework of the course Cine-photography directed by Marco Poloni during the first and second semester 2020-2021.

Essais photographique

PHOTOGRAPHY

Essais photographique

with Matthieu Gafsou

The mere mention of the term animal already raises questions; the most general of all is the following: do we, as humans, belong to this kingdom, or have we become totally alien to it ? The aim here is not to answer such a question, but to understand that the divide between humans and non-humans is extremely strong in our society - the only one in human history that has forged such a boundary. Yet the animal is everywhere in our daily lives. There is the animal we eat, or refuse to eat, the one we domesticate, the one that lives in our - its? - environment, the one we hunt, the one we cage in zoos, the one we study, the one we protect, etc... There is now talk of the sixth mass extinction of biodiversity. This context, which is ours today, complicates our relationship with living beings and with animals in particular. We are forced to rethink our relationship with others and become aware that life is a complex network in which we do not have all the space. Moreover, recent scientific research has exploded the Cartesian theory of the animal-machine and demonstrated that we are not the only ones to have developed an interiority. During this year-long project, students were asked to produce a series that addresses one or more of the themes associated with the animal world, in the form of their choice but using reality as raw material.

Accrochage Photographique

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 ?

Staged photography

PHOTOGRAPHY

Staged photography

with Milo Keller

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