NEXT STOP delves into the themes of solitude and alienation through the subway systems beneath our cities. Metaphorically, it is a reflection of and commentary on the dehumanizing effects of living in late capitalism.

According to studies, we are the loneliest society in history. This is a direct result of the lifestyle created by post-globalization, which deprives us of physical and emotional human contact and fuels our growing sense of isolation, alienation, and depression.

As a space where thousands of people cross paths each day without interacting, where crowds of anonymous faces flow by in never-ending streams, underground transportation networks are a living symbol of the contemporary human experience.

In the words of Marc Augè, subway systems and other non-places create “a collectivity without festival and solitude without isolation.”

Although the photographs are shot in specific cities—Barcelona, Paris, Rome, and others—each image could be anywhere, simultaneously depicting both everywhere and nowhere due to the unreal nature of our post-global spaces.

In StairMaze, a photo collage creates a labyrinth of endless escalators peppered with people facing different directions.

In 289 Steps, stop motion photography carries the viewer backwards through a busy corridor. White noise, human voices, wind chimes and repetitive chords intermingle in a hypnotic underground soundscape.

In these depictions, individual identities dissolve into the hurried crowds. Travelling on fixed paths, there is no freedom for self-expression or original behaviour. Humans devolve into anonymous automatons, destined or doomed to repeat the same journeys over and over and over in a perpetual cycle of alienation.

The project has been presented in various formats and contexts: as a zine created and published in collaboration with Elisava, Barcelona, in 2025; exhibited at El Saló, Can Basté, Barcelona, in 2024; and also shortlisted by Snapp Collective the same year.