Nicolas
Poillot

Enseignements

Nnormal × ECAL

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.

Carhartt WIP × ECAL

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.

BRUTAL 003

PHOTOGRAPHY

BRUTAL 003

with Nicolas Poillot

To celebrate the Paris Photo 2019 edition, the Bachelor Photography students of ECAL, under the artistic direction of Nicolas Poillot, translated the music of the producer IKAZ BOI into images. The visuals, sometimes smooth and neat, sometimes dark and rough, were produced by listening to the new project BRUTAL 3: an  intimate album oscillating between romance and darkness composed with instrumental tracks only. Exclusively, 500 unpublished and numbered vinyl copies were created especially for this occasion. For two days, ECAL invests the Au Roi gallery, inviting spectators to a sound and visual journey, in an ephemeral sensory space generated by a synchronous video installation. HD Images Cocktail: 07.11.19 from 19h00 to 21h30 (by invitation only) Exhibition: from 08.11.19 to 09.11.19 from 10h00 to 20h00 Place: Au Roi, 75, rue de la Fontaine-au-Roi, 75011 Paris After: Brutal Party Curators: Nicolas Poillot & Milo Keller Students: Mina Albespy, Faustine Ardaine, Maëwenn Bourcelot, Sarah Coppet, Gaël Corboz, Noé Cotter, Matthieu Croizier, Alexandra Dautel, Charlotte Favre, Laurent Fiorentino, Norida Ho, Gohan Keller, Achille Laplante - The Brown, Pavo Marinovic, Santiago Martinez, Mindaugas Matulis, Anouk Maupu, Maxime Pouillot, Margot Sparkes, Tara Ulmann, Valentin Woeffray Partners: Know-How, Heineken, Elipson www.ecal.ch www.nicolaspoillot.com www.auroi.fr