The work of Pierre Antoine Vettorello focuses on using textile design and clothes as a foundation for narrative. He makes sculptural and statement silhouettes that represent militancy and poetry. Some are inspired by military technologies, ordinary materials, West African textiles and materials, and methods learned during tours and workshops. As a designer, he seeks to incorporate hand-made processes and discarded elements into the creation of clothes and forms in order to center them in his work. As a human being and a scholar, he is challenging our personal relationship with our sartorial past, as well as how we manufacture mythologies about ‘designers’ in Western nations, repeating colonial practices. He identifies how we view and get inspiration from the African continent, as well as how we interact with it.
Vettorello received the ASVOF Diane Pernet award in 2010 and Arise Award in 2011.
He is French-born & Ivorian, grew up in Bordeaux, now works and lives in Brussels (Belgium). He is a Ph.D. research fellow at the University of Antwerp and Sint Lucas Antwerp School of Arts.
