Our Story
JULIA
CAMARA CALVO
When Dora Medrano and Javier Carbo were ready to launch their passion project, Atacama Home, during Dwell on Design in early 2018, they called their old right-hand Julia Camara Calvo to help them. They all had worked together for a few years at Carbo Films, so Julia knew of Dora’s expertise in design and witnessed this venture being born.
Julia is a native of the La Rioja region in Northern Spain (wine country).
She studied in Spain and the US, and met Javier and Dora, the founders of Atacama Home, back in 2013 when she moved to LA. She was a production manager and a stage actor before switching gears with Atacama Home.
She learned everything about design, craftsmanship, and beauty from Dora, who became a new mentor. They attended design events and fairs, met designers and artisans, and slowly but surely built the brand it is today (always with the loving and expert support of Javier).
Julia is so proud to be taking over Atacama Home as its new owner, and is working hard to build strong, meaningful relationships with every single artisan, studio, collective and designer she collaborates with. Her ultimate goal is to bring unique, beautiful, high-quality, and timeless objects that brighten people’s days and homes, and follow in Dora’s steps.
DORA
JAVIER
As 30 year veterans of US Hispanic Market advertising, their experience with their production company - Carbo Films - shaped them deeply in several ways. They travelled throughout Latin America, meeting wonderful people and constantly discovering handmade treasures to fill up their suitcases with. They knew that this was a part of the world that was underrepresented in the design community and quite misunderstood. Hence, Atacama Home was born from their passion for design and their strong desire to give a face to their community and smash stereotypes.
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY,
THE MAKERS
Please check back with us as we update our artisan's stories, there are so many wonderful, talented, generous people responsible for the beautiful objects we are lucky enough to be able to offer and we'd love for you to know them as well. Here are just a few images to give you an idea of who is behind the products.
More to come!
In case you were wondering, Atacama Home was named after the Atacama Desert in Chile, where the light is the purest in the world, and where you can see the universe with the naked eye.
OUR YELLOW LOGO
is the international symbol for "star".