Felipe Romero Beltrán. Dialect and Bravo: comparing exhibition and editorial projects. Published by Loose Joints

On the occasion of his workshop on April 18 and 19 with Azahara Lozano Dorado, Roma: The Documentary Condition: Archival Practices and Contemporary Photography, curated by Door Academy, we are pleased to host Felipe Romero Beltrán on April 22 for a presentation of his projects Dialect and Bravo, which will focus on comparing exhibition and editorial strategies.

If you are interested in participating in the workshop, please email doitoriginalorrenounce@gmail.com

Felipe Romero Beltrán is a Colombian photographer living in Madrid, Spain. He is interested in social issues, playing with the tension that new narratives can introduce into the field of documentary photography. Beltrán conceives the complexities of social contexts and the power of storytelling to promote new interpretations as the pillars of his practice. Many of his projects bring to the surface the living conditions of what the Colombian photographer calls “illegal bodies” or “migrant bodies”. By this expression, Beltrán refers to those who, having left their homeland in search of a better future, find themselves living elsewhere illegally in the hope of obtaining a residence permit that will allow them to stay where they are.

Dialect chronicles three years of state violence against nine young Moroccan migrants stranded in a Kafkaesque limbo in Seville, in southern Spain. When underage migrants enter the country illegally and cannot be verified as adults, they remain in the custody of the state—subjecting them to a lengthy process that can take up to three years to obtain legal status. In this state of limbo and liminality, Beltrán uses the body as a metaphor: using a language carefully woven from photography, performance, and collaboration, the weight of idle time is laid upon the shoulders of these young men, entering into a dialogue with their memories, their journeys, and the humiliating banality of waiting and migration.

Bravo is situated in the liminal space of the Rio Bravo, a place of perpetual tension and migration where identity and geography intertwine. Focusing on a 270-kilometer stretch of the river, the project constructs an elusive visual narrative in which the river itself becomes a silent protagonist, shaping the lives of those who approach it but rarely appearing in the frame. Attraverso ritratti crudi, interni austeri e paesaggi segnati, Bravo cattura il tempo sospeso della migrazione mentre i suoi soggetti attendono, a volte per anni, all’ombra di un attraversamento incerto.