Given Venezuela’s economic straits, long lines for food and the desire of many to live somewhere free of political strife, you’d think hitting the lottery would be a good thing. But for Alejandro Cegarra, there’s one number nobody wants to hit.

Alejandro Cegarra’s photo series “State of Decay” is an unflinching portrait of Venezuela’s collapse. How this country went from being one of Latin America’s richest societies to one of its poorest is a disaster of bewildering proportions, one that defies easy explanation. Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, but since the 2014 crash in world oil prices, on which Venezuela depended for more than ninety per cent of its export revenues, its economy has contracted continuously, unleashing an economic crisis worse than that experienced by Americans during the Great Depression. In the past five years, three million of Venezuela’s thirty-two million people have fled the country. More than half of all Venezuelans lack enough food to meet their daily needs. The country’s hospital system has all but failed; countless Venezuelans have died owing to a lack of medical attention and the scarcity of medicines for treatable illnesses. Hyperinflation is expected to reach ten million per cent this year. On top of everything else, Venezuela’s murder rate is among the world’s highest, making it one of the most dangerous countries in the world to live in.

The weariness looks like exhaustion in these images from Venezuelan photographer Alejandro Cegarra. His pictures show the Caracas park where he played as a kid, now in ruins, and a nearby McDonald’s, empty of customers because runaway inflation means a Happy Meal costs nearly a third of an average monthly wage.

In The Other Side of the Tower, which has won this year’s Ian Parry Scholarship, 24-year-old Venezuelan photographer Alejandro Cegarra documents the tower’s occupants and the lives they were able to build in the decrepit high-rise.

The tower of David is a skyscraper located in downtown Caracas, Venezuela. The structure is195 meters high, consists of two towers, and contains 45 floors. Construction began in 1990, but after a devastating economic crisis hit Venezuela in 1994, construction was abandoned. The building was 60% complete. 13 years later, in 2007, construction began again. This time however, it was not for its original purpose. Instead of office spaces, approximately 2,000 families invaded the space illegally.