São Paulo – A sweet, charismatic boy with untidy blonde hair who has much to teach adults is taking up all of the exhibition space at the Oca, in the Ibirapuera Park, in the city of São Paulo. It is an exhibition on The Little Prince, the immortal character created by the French Antonie de Saint–Exupéry, who travelled to Arab countries such as Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Sudan, Egypt and Algeria.
The exhibition is part of the celebrations of the Year of France in Brazil, and is a world premiere. The entire project was devised by the Brazilian Sheila Dryzun, curator of the event, and then submitted to the holders of the rights to Exupéry’s work, in France. The scenography, by Daniela Thomas and Felipe Tassara, takes visitors on a tour of two worlds: the Little Prince’s, filled with small planets, drawings, baobabs, volcanoes, a fox and a flower, and that of Exupéry, the pilot-poet who loved challenges.
The exhibition is distributed throughout four floors of the building designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer. Visitors are introduced to the work on the ground floor. The Little Prince is the third most translated book in the world. It is second only to the Bible and the Koran. In small halls, arranged as a circuit, the trip begins.
The book’s pictures come to life and become animated. In one of the halls, Japanese artist Takahiro Matsuo gave motion to the classical scene of the flight with the birds (for those unaware, this was how the Small Prince travelled: hitching rides with the birds). Using multimedia resources, Matsuo devised an environment in which the children can simulate contact with the birds – and they fly, to the beautiful sound of flapping wings.
Story of a lamb
“Draw me a lamb,” one of the most famous phrases in the book, is also featured in the ground floor of the exhibition. Visitors are invited to draw their own lambs. The problem is finding a blank space. In the first days of the exhibition (the opening was on October 22nd), the room was already covered with drawings and writing. Small blanks were left, in between one drawing and another, one signature and another. Those who managed to have left their mark.
Aeroplane, the home of the Arabs
From the book to the inspiration for writing it. In the underground of the Oca visitors will find a map, with sand on it, showing the countries that were visited by Exupéry and which are important to the story of the Small Prince – at times as settings, such as the desert, and at other times as a reference, such as the baobabs, typical trees of the North and Northeast Brazil regions. Exupéry travelled to Argentina, Brazil, Senegal, Mauritania, Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Egypt and Sudan.
In 1935, the pilot-poet went on a challenge trip. It was a speed challenge by which he would go from Paris, France, to Saigon, Vietnan, where his sister lived. According to Sheila, raids were a new formula for testing aircraft. Exupéry travelled on a single-engine Simon Cuadron. “It was the fastest at the time, capable of reaching 300 kilometres per hour,” says Sheila. But the aircraft had a malfunction and crashed in Libya, four hours after taking off.
Exupéry and his mechanic, Prévot, spent days wandering through the desert, and drank water from the radiator and dew from the parachutes. The harshness of the desert nearly killed them. “After three days believing that they had seen lakes and water wells, they were rescued by a group of Bedouins,” says Sheila. A reproduction of the red aeroplane sinking in the sands of the Libyan desert is on display at the Oca exhibition. In the panel, newspaper clippings from the time, reporting Exupéry’s airplane crash and the news that no one was expecting anymore: “they are alive!”.
It was during this forced stay in the desert that the author came up with the classic of world literature. On the Sahara sands, the book’s character met Feneck, a desert fox who teaches the Small Prince that one must have patience in order to captivate one’s friends. Exupéry’s meeting with the fox fascinated him. He found it to be a very wise animal, which respects nature to stay alive. It feeds on snails, but picks them from different bushes, thus allowing the animals to breed. It is a lesson in sustainability, applied to the modern world.
Also in the desert, visitors will see a replica of a Bedouin tent, with furnishing and decoration. In the beginning, the space was open to the public, but had to be shut down due to depredation, especially of the coloured cushions with typical drawings from the region. The items were damaged in the first days of the exhibition.
The underground area also houses a cinema, which shows a short, 15-minute film named Magic Book. Two actors, dressed as pilots, use light and shadow to tell the story of the Small Prince. According to the curator, Sheila Dryzun, films are also going to be exhibited at the premises, but the dates and program have not been defined yet. The entire façade, letterings and posters were painted in watercolour by fine artist and illustrator Reinaldo Ramos de Queiroz, who also created watercolour paintings in the outside, right at the entrance to the exhibition, including the box office and the creperie. Everything is reminiscent of Paris at the time of Exupéry.
Air messenger
For the adults, the second floor of the exhibition is revealing. Drawings, photographs and all of Exupéry’s fantastic biography are presented to the visitors. It is a space for discoveries: the author spoke Arabic perfectly. He learned in the mid-1920s, when he worked as a pilot for Latecoère (a French air transportation company that was later incorporated into Air France), travelling from Dakar (Senegal) to Casablanca (Morocco). The trip covered 2,765 kilometres of hostile territory in which the Moors, incited by the Spanish, would not think twice before attacking aircraft and capturing pilots.
The good performance as a pilot led Exupéry to assume a high-level position in Mauritania, at Cape Juby. There, to win the trust of local inhabitants, he decided to set up his tent in the outdoors and live like the desert nomads. He also started taking Arabic lessons, earned the respect of the locals, and became a local ambassador of sorts. Whenever a pilot would be captured in the region, Exupéry would go and negotiate the ransom. “He managed to turn the aggressiveness of the tribes into cooperation,” says Sheila. And this may be one of the most important messages in the book.
Visitors will also be able to witness the size of Exupéry’s oeuvre. Sixty covers (the first editions) in 60 different languages and dialects are on display in the second floor. The collection belongs to the Catalan Jaume Arbones. The Arabic edition dates back to 1962, nearly 20 years after the book’s release in the United States, in 1943. In France, because of World War Two, the book was first edited in 1946, two years after the passing of Exupéry. The aeroplane that he was flying disappeared on July 31, 1944, during a mission of the Allies, in a flight that took off from Corsica with the intention of taking photographs of the Mediterranean and the French coast. Exupéry was 44 and had a lengthy body of work. Aside from the Small Prince, he wrote the books Southern Mail, Night Flight and made a few movies. He left many drawings and travel diaries.
Interaction
Another strong point is the top floor, which features a replica of the Small Prince’s planet, the B612. Fathers and sons share the moment, and the architecture of the Oca helps them embark on the trip. The Small Prince’s galaxy is reproduced on the roof, spinning around and conveying emotion. On the B612 there are a rose, volcanoes and several hopping children, carried away with the story that has charmed generations for 66 years.
Information
When: until December 20th
Site: www.opequenoprincipe.com
Place: Oca, Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo, Brazil
Ticket: 18 reals (US$ 10)
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
