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 Afropean, grew up in Bordeaux and works and lives in Brussels. He has an MA from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, fashion department and an MA in Artistic Research from Sint Lucas School of Arts. He is currently completing a Ph.D. research fellow at the University of Antwerp and Sint Lucas Antwerp School of Arts.
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Latest Work
May 2022
Villa Ndar, Institut Français du Sénégal, Saint-Louis
January - March 2022
Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris
January - March 2021
AAIR - Artist in Residence, Antwerp
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Education
2021-2025
University of Antwerp (ARIA) & KdG Sint Lucas School of Arts, Antwerp
Ph.D. Research Fellow (candidate)
2020
KdG Sint Lucas School of Arts, Antwerp
Advanced Masters in Artistic Research within a Social & Political Context.
2010
Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Fashion dpt., Antwerp
Masters & Bachelor in Fashion Design.
2005
ENSAAMA Olivier de Serres, Paris
Certification in Textile Design.
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Teaching
Since January 2022
Istituto Marangoni Paris.
Teaching master's students (Designer Thinking & Neo-Craftmanship) and tutor.
(English)
Since 2015
Oxbridge Academic Programs, Paris.
Teacher of fashion design, history of fashion and fashion criticism to grades 9-12 major and minor programs. Focus on Parisian Fashion.
(English)
Spring 2021
Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Brussels.
Teacher of fashion and textile design applications, project monitoring at the Executive Masters in Knitting Design program.
(French)
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Lectures
May - December 2022
Dakar Design Hub, Dakar.
Lecture and workshop about archival iconography and historiography.
Sint Lucas School of Arts, Antwerpen.
Lecture and workshop about archival, ecopoetics and fashion.
Royal Academy of Fine Arts, fashion dept., Antwerp
Rethinking Design: fashion, decolonization, and ecopoetic pathways to hidden narratives. Guest lecturer for bachelor's degree students.
LUCA / school of arts, Ghent.
Rethinking Design: fashion, decolonization, and ecopoetic pathways to hidden narratives.
February - May 2023
LUCA / school of arts, Brussels.
Fiction as a lens on decoloniality and fashion
Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule
University of Art and Design, Halle.
Lecture on my Ph.D. research "Black Yarns".
April 2021
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Publications
A conversation with Diana Bamimeke and Rima Hamid - Black Pride Ireland
Vettorello, Pierre-Antoine (2021) A conversation with Diana Bamimeke and Rima Hamid, Advanced Master of Research in Art and Design, special issue of TYPP. Antwerp: Yellow Press, pp. 35-42.
October 2022
The Curation of African Textiles in Belgian Fashion Museums from a Diasporic Viewpoint
Vettorello, Pierre-Antoine & Okemwa, Nyanchama (2022) The Curation of African Textiles in Belgian Fashion Museums from a Diasporic Viewpoint, TYPP#8 Blind Spot. Antwerp: Yellow Press, pp. I-XVI.