Passenger

This series features candid photographic portraits capturing individuals walking through Grand Central Station, New York City.

Initially, the work emerged from a purely aesthetic exploration—an attempt to document how the soft, natural light in Grand Central Station shapes and transforms the impressions of body and facial expressions. I aimed to calibrate both camera and lens to evoke the ether-like, ephemeral qualities of impressionism, experimenting with ways to achieve this effect through post-production recoloring.

However, as primary source documents, these images also engage with broader inquiries into socioeconomic class, culture, power, and agency. As a Latin American immigrant, I have been acutely aware of how public spaces impose invisible, repressive boundaries that dictate who is allowed access, and under what conditions. In the U.S., your identity—where you come from, what you look like—shapes your access to public spaces, inclusion, and opportunities for power, knowledge, and survival. This series is a snapshot of "who" has access to this colossal hall on an ordinary day, but it also highlights "who" is missing, those excluded by circumstances of race, class, or status.

I am deeply committed to documenting individuals in public spaces, creating site-specific visual ethnographies that can speak to future generations about who we were in this moment of history. My fascination with ancient Maya, Greek, and Egyptian sculpture and painting informs this investigation. Just as these cultures captured the essence of their time, I strive to portray the individuals of my era—though my tools are photographic, capturing not only their physical presence but also a glimpse into their psyche.

Recognizing that true objectivity is impossible, I used protocols inspired by Merce Cunningham's chance methods in dance choreography and randomized procedures from archaeological excavations to maximize any attempt at neutrality. This approach allowed for a more balanced representation of those who crossed my path in Grand Central Station, creating a more authentic visual ethnography of this public space.