The Body As Index
Issue 1
Artist Volumes Series
Felipe Romero Beltrán
New Poetics Publishing
English
Edited by Cristina Velásquez and Nechama Winston
Text by Albert Corbí
Softcover
Edition of 300
16 pages
170 x 230 mm
2023
ISSN 29815320
The selection of work in Felipe Romero Beltrán’s The Body As Index is edited from three series: Magdalena, Dialect, and As a Mother Tongue. Beltrán works within the languages of photography and performance, moving away from the documentary tradition, using the body as a site for speculation where the narrative is multiple. He focuses on social issues, such as alienation and social inequity of migrants in today’s society. Engaging with the body as a metaphor, Beltrán enters into a dialogue with his subjects’ memories, following them over time. He captures the self-realizing tensions that ensue while he instructs his subjects to reenact traumatic events through staged choreographic movements, often with the assistance of Beltrán’s partner, a professional dancer.
Albert Corbí, the contributing writer for Beltrán’s book, writes, “There is an unceasing insistence in these works, an unceasing desire that the very nature of the image obstructs (and perhaps inhibits), and that is to make the body the index of something, of something that is left behind (on the other side of the Strait, at the point of departure), of something that occurs without seeming to leave a trace (under the surface of the Magdalena River); to turn the body on its own, and not its translation, to the surface that contains a silhouette…as evidence of something that is essential, imponderable, central, yet impossible to say […] The tense and mute surface of the body insists in spite of representation, asserts itself as the first of the indexes, irreducible, indelible, beyond violence, active but infinitesimally mute, non-verbal, always persecuted, always irresolvably political.”
(Source: https://www.newpoeticsoflabor.com/artist-volumes/p/felipe-romero-beltran)
About the Artist
Felipe Romero Beltrán (b. 1992) is a Colombian photographer based in Paris. Beltrán focuses on social issues, dealing with the tension that new narratives introduce in the field of documentary photography. His practice, characterized by its interest in social matters, is the result of long-term projects accompanied by extensive research on the subject.
Beltrán completed a PhD in photography at the Complutense University of Madrid in 2023. His acclaimed series Dialect was published by Loose Joints in 2023 and was shortlisted for Photobook of the Year at the 2023 Aperture–Paris Photo PhotoBook Awards. Romero Beltrán was the winner of the 2023 Paul Huf Award, the 2023 KBr Photo Award, the 2022 Aperture Portfolio Prize, the Prix pour la photographie du musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac 2024, and is shortlisted for the Prix d’Elysée 2025.
https://feliperomerobeltran.com
(Source: https://loosejoints.biz/products/bravo)
About the Publisher
New Poetics Publishing is an independent publishing house based between Bogotá and New York, founded by artists Nechama Winston and Cristina Velásquez. New Poetics Publishing is part of New Poetics of Labor, a research platform founded in 2017. New Poetics Publishing collaborates with emerging artists on contemporary and experimental approaches to photography in the book form. We disseminate diverse visual perspectives, narratives and aesthetics, seeking to feature underrepresented voices in the photographic discourse. Through photography we contribute to alternative modes of learning and thinking. New Poetics Publishing prioritizes producing high quality affordable books. Our approach to publishing allows us to work in close collaboration with artists from start to finish, with all design and editing done in-house. Production is done locally and by close friends.
https://www.newpoeticsoflabor.com
(Source: https://www.newpoeticsoflabor.com/about)
