Photograph of a young person wearing an orange hooded jacket and dark shorts holding their hands up to their face and leaning over another young person wearing blue sportswear sat down in a white plastic chair. A third person wearing black shorts and pool sliders is stood against a white wall watching on, taken from Dialect by Felipe Romero Beltran

Felipe Romero Beltrán photographs the migrant experience in Spain

In his new photo book, the Madrid-based photographer captures the long wait for a new life in one of the country’s migrant centres

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Independent publishing house Loose Joints has released Dialect, a photo book by Colombian photographer Felipe Romero Beltrán that explores the experiences of adolescent migrants arriving in Spain.

Training his lens on nine Moroccan teenage boys stuck in bureaucratic limbo in Seville, having crossed the Mediterranean Sea in search of a better life, Beltrán attempts to understand their situation as they await legal status in the country.

Using a combination of documentary, performance, and choreography, he engages with the body as a metaphor, examining the “weight of dead time” through intimate portraiture of the boys.

Photograph of a young person sat on a pile of car tyres smoking a cigarette and looking at the camera, holding a mirror that another young person wearing grey shorts is looking into, their reflection visible. The image is taken from Dialect by Felipe Romero Beltran
All images © Felipe Romero Beltrán, 2023, courtesy Loose Joints
Photograph of a young person wearing white underwear and no shirt, who is cutting the hair of another person sat in a white plastic chair with their back to the camera, taken from Dialect by Felipe Romero Beltran
Photograph of a person with shaving cream on the lower half of their head mid-shave, taken from Dialect by Felipe Romero Beltran. The person is sat down in a white chair with their back to the camera

Beltrán photographs the mundanity of their daily rituals, as they smoke, sleep, eat, work out, and give each other haircuts within the clinical confines of their internment building. They will remain here for up to three years before being released, and the photographs reveal the inhumanity of the process, positioning the boys as prisoners of state oppression.

Working collaboratively with them, Beltrán captures reenactments of the experiences they went through on their arduous journey across the border, including being squeezed onto a small boat with 80 other people.

Photograph of a person wearing grey tracksuit bottoms and flip flops lying down on a brown dry surface, holding their arm to shield their face, taken from Dialect by Felipe Romero Beltran
Photograph taken from Dialect by Felipe Romero Beltran of four young people stood outside in front of windows, in an area with a red floor. The three people on the left are stood close to one another, while the fourth on the right, wearing a white crop top and dark shorts, is stood apart
Photograph from Dialect by Felipe Romero Beltran showing a young person, who is wearing red shorts, holding arm weights while sat down on a garden chair, as soon through a glass window and door

These reenactments serve both as compositional tools and as a form of therapy for the group, with Beltrán saying that they found some acceptance by reliving these experiences and observing them through the photographic medium.

Alongside the evocative portraits, Beltrán also presents stills from a video recording of the group, in which they recite the first four pages of the Spanish immigration law – the details of which “regulates and controls their migration status”.

Throughout, Dialect emphasises the alienation and stagnation that the group endures at the hands of bureaucracy – experiences that are found not just in Spain, but in almost all EU countries.

Portrait image of a person with their own hands and other hands around their neck, against a white wall, taken from Dialect by Felipe Romero Beltran
Image of two young people wearing t-shirts carrying a third person with closed eyes over their shoulder, taken from Dialect by Felipe Romero Beltran
Image of the cover of Dialect by Felipe Romero Beltran, which is a brown background covered with text that has been mostly redacted with black pen
Cover of Dialect by Felipe Romero Beltrán

Dialect by Felipe Romero Beltrán is published by Loose Joints; loosejoints.biz

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