Zaïra Vieytes
Platero
When I decided to go on the road, to run away from a world from which I did’t expect much , I felt close to Platero, a small donkey, the best travelling-companion for a journey.
When I was a little girl, my mother often read me some poems, sometimes from Federico Garcia Lorca, sometimes from Juan Ramon Jiménez.
Juan Ramon Jiménez is a great Spanish poet, winner of the Nobel prize for literature in 1956 for his most important work in prose, the story of a litte Andalouse donkey, “Platero y Yo”. “Platero is small, gentle, hairy, so soft in aspect, one would think he was made of cotton without any bones. Only the mirrors of jade in his eyes are hard, like two black crystal beetles”.
Everybody belived that Platero was a donkey, “and if this donkey wasn’t a donkey” murmurs Jimenez. “Platero and I” is much more than a simple story of friendship between a man and his donkey. In truth, it is a journey filled with obstacles, disillusions, unhappiness but also great happiness in a man who left Moquer, a small town in Andalousie.
I slipped into the author’s skin and some years ago, I borrowed his soft Platero. I closed my eyes, I became a little girl again, and I asked Platero to take me on a fantastic journey to visit the soft, colourful and fragrant places of the earth. So we shared adventures, colours and shapes.
Zaira Vieytes
Gilles Lipovetsky - Matière et Mémoire
Carola Lagomarsino-Vieytes - Banquet, histoire