PHOTOGRAPHY
Nnormal × ECAL
with Nicolas Poillot
In September 2024, the start of the academic year was marked by the launch of a collaboration with the trail equipment brand Nnormal. At the same time, Kilian Jornet, the brand’s founder, made headlines by climbing 82 Alpine peaks over 4,000 meters, setting a new record. Like trail running, photography requires passion, discipline, and endurance. The Bachelor Photography students may not be athletes, but they pursue their own visual feats, pushing boundaries to craft a unique language in an image-saturated world. ECAL has a long tradition of collaborating with top-level professionals who are eager to share their experience with a new generation in search of direction. One such figure is Régis Tosetti, artistic director at Nnormal and a former Visual Communication graduate at ECAL, who initiated the project alongside Nicolas Poillot, head coach and art director, known for his blend of fashion and documentary work. A longtime guest lecturer at ECAL, Nicolas has guided students with clarity and precision through the brand’s visual identity. In a noisy world overloaded with stimuli, this collaboration offered students an escape into the mountains—a space for communion, imagination, and adventure. There, bodies and landscapes meet, connected by the shoes that allow us to go further. But beyond the object itself, the students’ projects express ecological values, contrasting atmospheres, organic and technical textures, and bodies straining toward effort and release. And as in trail running, despite careful preparation, the unexpected often leads to new forms of beauty.
