Some time ago Lestido asked me to take an envelope to a Japanese woman that was in Buenos Aires for a short time. When I called her to arrange the delivery, the woman referred to Adriana as “Master Lestido”. She spoke a strange Spanish but when she said: “Master Lestido sends that to me?” she was explaining better than any of us what is happening with Lestido.

Lestido does not find it funny, but things are like that. I have been a close observer of this phenomenon from the moment Lestido spends more and more time on the Atlantic coast. It is very moving to see a person as a cocoon and then, reincarnate. What is great about Lestido is that she revives without losing her previous reincarnations (these are words I don´t use regularly. This is another Lestido effect).

What I admire of her is that all the others she was before are still alive. And she keeps on changing. And keeps on adding. There were crude aspects at the beginning. Straightforward, testimonial, rough. But always intimate. That´s what she has and has always had. With the passing of time she was adding harmony and also other aspects to that intimacy. I am impressed to see that with nature she achieves something she used to achieve with people. They reveal to her. That is intimacy. “What is seen”, she says.

That step behind the self, so Japanese, that can be confusing. I do not think she is becoming more austere, on the contrary, I think she is encouraging herself more towards vastness in its different ways. Every time more. So that every time can be seen even more. If our sight were good enough, we could see our necks when we look at a distance. That is what Lestido does with her photos.

ADN, cultural supplement of La Nación newspaper, June 24, 2011.

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