I am an ecologist, a sculptor and a performer. These three identities together led me to use  printed paper for my creations. I love feeling paper in my hands, hoping that other people can be inspired by my work to recycle. I love thinking that it is possible to save our ecosystem and that future generations will benefit from my work as an artist. I love seeing in my finished works their stiffnes, how similar they are to the trees they come from. I love creating sort of archives not only with my “tape-stries” and “tape-centres” but with every new work which  gathers stories, images, advertisements of the past.

             I start by ripping a newspaper into stripes, then I make a thread out of them, overlapping the two ends of the stripes without using water or glue, but just twisting them together. I avoid using glue because the thread would lose softness and elasticity and, by drying, it would create corners difficult to be knitted. I never add colours: the only colours I use are those I find in  printed paper: sometimes the background is already coloured, other times I select pages of advertisements in a certain colour, which I then transform into balls. Once the balls are ready I knit the thread, or I crochet it or I weave it with a loom, following the traditional procedures and the projects  I have.

              My works are poor and precious at the same time.

                                                         Ivano Vitali   

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