This piece forms part of the Contemporary Invaders project commissioned by Julieta de Haro, which recognises the value that new spaces hold for transformation, experimentation and conquest. Creators become invaders of the façades of some of the capital’s most emblematic buildings. The cultural heritage of these structures — and the life they house within — expands symbolically outward from a contemporary perspective, in an allegory of both the past and the present.

Human traffic that moves within a single space. A loop of people coming and going becomes a metaphor of the dynamic we see at the Prado Museum and the Church of Saint Jerome the Royal. Both museum and church absorb this passage of humans and respond to their needs for observation and reflection. Human traffic that, as a result of the pandemic, we have begun to quantify. The anticipation of isolation, of a limit to enjoying what is most beautiful and meaningful.

Using digital photography, Alicia Moneva captures subjects in a sequence of images in a single space. The repetition of moving figures becomes her visual mantra. These patterns multiply and morph into the image of a human cell, giving way to feelings of confinement, of an intimate revelation. As these images compound, as though a succession of photograph negatives, the artist’s intention is to show time and space in one single instance.