Credit: Justine Stella Knuchel

Language of birds in the sky

Rooted in a passion for board sports during my youth, my initial artistic gestures took the form of drawings of those “gliding choreographies”, their cultures and logos. It later evolved into photographic documentary work. I sought to capture freedom, velocity, and movement.

These very early, raw and unconscious practices honed my visual sensibility. This led to my first publications when I was 17 years old — initially in local, then international magazines. These very publications sparked a lasting fascination with printed matter: its scent, binding, the orchestration of stories and images, typography.

In 2023, I earned a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication from ECAL. Throughout this period, I developed a multidisciplinary approach, refined my areas of inquiry, discovered the discipline of type design — and above all, the mysterious sensitivity of typographic curves.

Since then, my practice has gradually shifted toward more introspective and artistic terrain. I engage with a range of media — painting, drawing, video, manual printing techniques, and editorial projects — as vehicles for exploring the intersection between gesture, writing, and language. My current research revolves around the abstraction of written forms and the expressive potential of the curve, once liberated from linguistic function.

Stripped of its typographic role, the written gesture becomes pure movement — an abstract trace of thought, emotion, or rhythm. Language becomes universal.

It is the same impulse that led me to make my very first drawings as a child: like the flight of a bird carried by the wind — unbound and free.

Bourse pour le Talent et la Créativité – ECAL + Fondation Casino Barrière, 2023

HAE wear;
Salomon Freeski;
Basecamp (Locarno Film Festival);
AB3.ch;
TWIN + Whiteout Magazine;
Escape Video;
Buldoz Life;
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