in and envisioning the island, turning it into pure creation. I believe that in and around Las Dalias and even further afield in Sant Carles, this gift for peaceful and creative coexistence is still alive and well. You only need to look at the concerts and the International Piano Festival held here every summer, led with such flair by Jaime and María Ángeles Ferrer. The poem I reproduce below was inspired by the last concert I attended. The Las Dalias market is also a kind of labyrinth, where getting lost becomes a marvellous experience. Once inside you won’t want to leave, for it draws you into a world where harmony is a real possibility, illuminated by friendship and the creations that flower at the hands of its artists and craftsmen. Once you’ve visited Las Dalias, you’ll never want to leave its multi-coloured labyrinth. But you’ll also realise that it does in fact lead somewhere. To privileged spaces like the nearby Atzaró Valley, the Arabí and Morna springs, and the beaches and hills close by. An Ibiza which preserves its essence without surrendering its origins or its freedom, where everyone can claim their place under the climbing plants, the roofs and the shady spots of the street market itself because here, art and crafts are created and offered with love. Convivencia (living together) and respect are the watchwords at Las Dalias. The unity in diversity which lay behind its creation shines with its own light, as does the diversity in the unity which keeps it going. Diversity is seen in its visitors; and unity in the overarching spirit of an island which is fortunately still very much alive and kicking. The day when a place like Las Dalias died the island wouldn’t be far behind. Ibiza would lose its essence, the thing it has always been. An island of pilgrimage and welcome, a place with its own strong but conciliatory character, open to the world. Its first illustrious visitors knew this when they arrived. In the days of the Archduke Luis Salvador, but also of the first artists and intellectuals who set up home here in the 1930s, or the second wave in the 1950s, mostly painters, or immediately after that with the eruption of the hippy phenomenon. Its secret was also known to the many fugitives and exiles fleeing the terror of extreme ideologies, and the to free-thinking Ibizans who in spite of knowing that they had the gift of this beautiful land, still opened their hearts to other affections and to other peoples. We love nothing more than seeing Ibiza in harmony and freedom, in tune with its environment and in the plenitude of its existence. Las Dalias is still a prolific example of all this today. •
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Everyone is free and everyone has a place in the market, under the shade of its climbing plants, where art and crafts are created and offered with love.
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There’s nothing we love more than Ibiza in harmony, at one with its environment and in plenitude of its being. Las Dalias is still a prolific example of this today.
Las Dalias
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