Prossima stazione
A daily glimpse into the Turin subway
Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.
— Walker Evans, Many are called
Every day, I travel the same home-work route using Line 1 of the Turin subway.
The cost of a trip is only one euro.
Each trip gives a series of events, of coincidences. Of visions. Images that in the morning register yawning, with the taste of coffee still in your mouth, thinking about a new long day of work. The journey is slow, the pace a bit swamped. Some glances are lost in the void, between the headphones of an iPod or fixed on a freshly printed copy of a free press.
Click.
A recorded voice punctuates the interval between stations, “Next station eighteenth December. Next station December eighteenth.”
The evening is more hectic. Faces are more tired. The return journey is made faster by the urge to get home. They look down or out the window.
Every now and then Line 1 subway trains meet. A coincidence dictated by the automated pace of those who built the facility or simply by the randomness of the rides.
Beyond the glass another illuminated carriage; there are new faces and situations to portray.
Click.
The window of the wagon is a privileged place; one can maintain a certain distance and browse quite anonymously what is happening on the other side. It is easy to get caught, and very few people return the gaze.
The photographs taken in this project were taken with a Contax film camera, made completely anonymous to prevent the subjects from noticing they were being filmed.
The idea is not new.
In the late 1930s, using a hidden camera, Walkers Evans took photographs of passengers riding on New York subway trains, unaware that they were being filmed, offering a glimpse into the moments of uncertainty for Depression-era Americans.
Unlike Evans’ work, my photographs are not taken surreptitiously. Mine is a privileged vantage point from which I can observe the scene through the camera’s viewfinder.
A constant distance of a couple of panes of glass beyond the space separating the two trains is always maintained between me and the subject.
