5AM SHIFT

The canteen was the meeting point of all the departments where status, nationality or functions never matter, a temporary place full of hope and dreams for a better future. Leaving families and friends behind, we all came to the UK chasing dreams and looking for new opportunities.

This project was taken in 2014 while I was working part-time in a hotel in London. It was with full admiration and respect for my colleagues that I set up my camera for the demanding 5am shift. Often foreigners that usually know more than one language, some are graduates, with previous jobs while others are working to pay for their studies.

But the hotel’s ‘human resources’ database contain just simple information about them because they have the fastest turnover of staff than any other business.

Workers have limited functions with their capacities completely underestimated, not contributing proactively to the expansion of their imagination or the enrichment of the experience of those they employ, as the commercial success of hotels has been paralleled by the narrowing of their social purpose.

Hotels are a small world in miniature, employing and hosting people from every part of the planet. Most employees have an extraordinary amount and variety of talent, experience and knowledge, but the guests will never be aware of it.