Bravo situates itself in the liminal space of the Río Bravo, a territory marked by migration where geography and identity collide. Focusing on a 270-kilometre stretch of the river, Romero Beltrán constructs an elusive visual narrative in which the river becomes a silent protagonist, shaping lives while remaining largely absent from view.

Through portraits, interiors, and landscapes, Bravo captures the suspended time of migration. Romero Beltrán’s precise visual language articulates a political reality in which meticulously staged portraiture both reveals and conceals resilience. Everyday objects within the interiors, a speaker, a mattress, a red-painted table, acquire symbolic weight, reflecting conditions of precarity and control.

Structured in three chapters, Endings, Bodies, and Breaches, the project challenges systems of classification, enclosure, and identification that govern border regimes. The audiovisual work El Cruce further emphasizes the river’s dual role as both life source and militarized boundary, intertwining scenes of baptism, fishing, and migrant testimony. With accompanying texts and an interview with the artist, Bravo emerges as a poetic yet urgent meditation on a border defined by contradiction, where hope and despair, movement and stasis coexist.

This project won the KBr Photo Award 2025, a biennial award organized by the Mapfre Foundation that includes the creation of an exhibition and a book.

Felipe Romero Beltrán (1992, Bogotá) is a Colombian artist based in Paris, working with photography and installation. His practice examines social and political structures, focusing on how systems of power shape contemporary realities. Rooted in documentary methodologies, his work explores the tensions that arise when new narratives are introduced into established visual frameworks.

He develops long-term, research-based projects that take the form of constructed visual ecosystems, allowing his work to engage documentary traditions while critically addressing how bodies are inscribed and regulated within institutional systems. His practice is informed by an academic background in photography, culminating in a PhD from the Complutense University of Madrid (2024).

His work has received international recognition, including the Emerige-CPGA Award at ARCOmadrid (2024), the Foam Paul Huf Award (2022), the Aperture Portfolio Prize (2022), and the KBr Photo Award (2024).
He has presented solo exhibitions at Carré d’Art, Musée d’art contemporain de Nîmes, Fundación MAPFRE, and La MEP, Paris, and has been shown at Paris Photo, ARCO Madrid, and ARTBO. His work is held in public collections such as Kadist Art Foundation, Carré d’Art, and MACBA.
He is currently a resident at La Cité des Arts, Paris, with the IN SITU program.