Camilo Echavarria: Rincón del Mar

Camilo Echavarria: Rincón del Mar by Aline SmithsonJuly 25, 2026

©Camilo Echavarria, Rincón del Mar 020

In the early 2000s, a series of identical houses was constructed in the coastal village of Rincón del Mar, Colombia. Over the following fifteen years, Camilo Echavarria repeatedly photographed these structures, creating a sustained record of their transformation. While some houses remain close to their original form, others have been altered or abandoned, revealing the effects of economic pressures and changing social conditions.

What begins as a study of architectural uniformity gradually becomes an examination of divergence. Designed as standardized dwellings, the houses accumulate individual histories through successive modifications and acts of occupation, adaptation, and neglect. Each structure evolves in response to the circumstances of its inhabitants, departing from the logic of the original plan.

Drawing on photography’s capacity to register change over time, the work is less concerned with architecture as a fixed object than with the processes that shape it. The resulting typologies made over time, form a portrait of a community in transition, where the built environment becomes a visible record transformation. Through the repetition of the photographic act, time itself emerges as the central subject.

©Camilo Echavarria, Rincón del Mar 010

Rincón del Mar

In the early 2000s, a series of identical houses was built in the coastal village of Rincón del Mar, Colombia. Over the past fifteen years I have photographed them repeatedly, recording their gradual transformations. Some houses remain intact, others are altered, abandoned, or replaced, reflecting pressures of tourism, necessity, aspiration, and circumstance. Though standardized in design, each accumulates its own history, quietly diverging from the logic of its original plan. The work draws on photography’s longstanding capacity to witness and register change. What emerges is not a typology of architecture but a record of time acting upon form, a portrait of a place where structures persist, adapt, or disappear, and where duration becomes visible.

Instagram: @elrincondelmar_

©Camilo Echavarria, Rincón del Mar 070

Camilo Echavarría (b. 1970, Medellín, Colombia) is a photographer whose work approaches landscape as a dense field of relationships shaped by human perception, ecology, and history. His practice combines large-scale photography and photo-based video installations. He holds a B.S. from Southern New Hampshire University and an M.A. in Art History from Universidad de Antioquia. His work is part of the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York, the Colección Jan Mulder, Lima, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Archivo Arkhé, Madrid, and the Museo de Antioquia, Medellín, among other collections.
Website: www.camiloechavarria.net
Instagram: @camiloechavarria_