PRODUCT DESIGN

U.F.O.G.O. Wind Turbines

with Camille Blin, Anniina Koivu, Anthony Guex, Marvin Merkel, Arthur Seguin

In 2023, the significant role of renewable energies in tackling the environmental crisis is blatant. In this context, wind power has once again been presented as a promising avenue for regions seeking to transition to renewable energy. However, concerns about their visual intrusion on surrounding environments pose a significant obstacle to their deployment. From a design perspective, this aesthetical factor is not insurmountable. On the contrary, it highlights the need for greater consideration of how we shape these technologies and integrate them into the environment and our lives. This project, completed by 16 MA Product Design Students of ECAL, has set out to explore how wind turbines can fit into natural landscapes and cultures not only sensitively, but beautifully – if we focus on their design. To complete the project effectively, a case study location was required. Fogo Island (Newfoundland, Canada), described locally as "this rock in the battering Northern Sea," was chosen due to its natural beauty, abundant wind, and tight-knit community of approximately 2,500 inhabitants. The island's climate and geography make it ideal for wind turbines. Additionally, Fogo Island is home to Shorefast, a non-profit organization dedicated to building a sustainable, renewable economy for the island. In October 2022, the students and tutors of ECAL visited and immersed themselves in Fogo Island. The project resulted in eight speculative yet practical wind turbine designs, considerately informed by various perspectives. U.F.O.G.O. is a sustainability project  grounded in reality, but not limited by what already is. Collaboration Partners: Shorefast HEIG-VD/School of Management and Engineering Vaud (Marc Pellerin, Philippe Morey and Marco Viviani) Media Partner: Disegno Funding: Summer University Programme of the Board of Higher Education (DGES) State of Vaud HES-SO Recherche Transdisciplinaire en Durabilite (under the project title 'INTEGRATED WIND TURBINES’)

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.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Marvin Merkel – Kuh Vache Mucca

by Marvin Merkel

« Kuh Vache Mucca is an installation through which I question my relationship with Swiss national identity. Having neither passport, family or roots in Switzerland, I have never identified as a Swiss national. The images and sculptures that make up this project bear witness to my attempts at reconciliation with my homeland and its national identity. These clumsy or even failed attempts offer a new approach to national identity. They make the traditions, customs, figures and monuments that every citizen has learned to praise look comical and absurd and thus question their existence. Is it still necessary and legitimate nowadays to maintain a country’s national identity?»

PHOTOGRAPHY

Workshop Mårten Lange

with Mårten Lange

Failure is necessary and is part of the artistic development that is articulated by risk taking, luck, ambition, fear and freedom. The aim of the workshop was to successfully photograph, edit and sequence a series of images on the topic of failure. The final results are presented in various forms: editions, simple prints or more complex hangings and videos.

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.

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 ?

PHOTOGRAPHY

Carhartt WIP × ECAL

with Nicolas Poillot, Milo Keller

Earlier this year, Carhartt WIP (for Work in Progress) teamed up with ECAL, inviting Bachelor Photography students to interpret in their own way some of the emblematic pieces of the American clothing brand, which develops its own collections from the original Carhartt work clothes. The students, led by art director Nicolas Poillot, produced an editorial report, which was included in the latest issue of "WIP Magazine" published by Carhartt WIP and some of whose images will be exhibited at the ECAL on the occasion of the launch of this book.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Hans Emmeneger - Fondation de l'Hermitage

with Philippe Jarrigeon, Milo Keller

During the retrospective organized by the Hermitage Foundation, photography students from ECAL/École cantonale d'art de Lausanne pay tribute to this little-known artist. Without having seen his works beforehand, they explore his universe through the analysis of reproductions and some biographical elements. Throughout the semester, students delve into the mysteries of Emmenegger's work, pondering what his paintings could reveal under an X-ray scanner or how he would have used photography if given the opportunity. They employ contemporary techniques such as analog and digital photography, video, and 3D software to offer personal and poetic interpretations of his work. Their creations, presented as part of the retrospective, provide fresh perspectives on Emmenegger's oeuvre and invite viewers to discover this mysterious artist through the eyes of ECAL students. Exhibition at the Fondation de l'Hermitage, Lausanne June 25 to October 31, 2021

PHOTOGRAPHY

Pratique photographique

with Milo Keller

EXHIBITIONS

ECAL×JEAN PAUL GAULTIER: Under Your Smell,
10–12.11.2022,
Paris

From November 10 to 12 2022, Jean Paul Gaultier opens the doors of its Paris headquarters to the general public. During Paris Photo, the House is partnering with ECAL to present the photography exhibition Under Your Smell. Students from Bachelor Photography will show their interpretation of Gaultier's perfumes.

EXHIBITIONS

ECAL x Jean Paul Gaultier: Smells Like Queer Spirit,
05.02–24.04.2022,
Musée des beaux-arts, Le Locle

From 5 February (opening on 4 February at 6 pm) to 24 April 2022 at the Musée des beaux-arts in Le Locle, ECAL presents the exhibition "Smells Like Queer Spirit" created in collaboration with Jean Paul Gaultier by third-year Bachelor Photography students, under the direction of Florence Tétier and Nicolas Coulomb (Novembre). Namsa Leuba and Erwan Frotin, two graduates of the Bachelor Photography programme at ECAL, will also be honoured with two monographic exhibitions.

PARTNERSHIP

ECAL×JEAN PAUL GAULTIER: Under Your Smell

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.