Roughly 1.4 billion people live in China, yet Bence Bakonyi managed to explore a great swath of the country without seeing a soul.

You'd be hard pressed to spot anyone in the ethereal photos compiled in his series, Segue. Bakonyi focused on deserted sidewalks, abandoned swimming pools, and vast landscapes seemingly devoid of life. They're a metaphor for the isolation he experienced as a visitor who couldn't speak the language. “I thought if I don’t speak their language, I would like to illustrate China without people,” he says.

The 5,000-mile trek through China started in early 2014 with an invitation to a four-month artist’s residency in the Xuhui district of Shanghai. Given so wonderful an opportunity, Bakonyi decided to make it a bigger trip. He arrived in Shanghai six months early to explore the country, beginning with a 300-mile train ride west to Mount Huangshan, widely considered China’s loveliest mountain. He continued west, spending weeks at a time in places like Lanzhou, a smog-choked city on the Yellow River, and Dunhuang, a dusty town at the edge of the Taklamakan Desert. Eventually he turned east and made his way to Hong Kong.

With no one to talk to and nowhere in particular to go, Bakyoni had no end of time for photography. He spent days wandering cities alone, exploring rooftops and trash dumps in search of interesting shapes and forms in the landscape. When something caught his eye, he'd set up his Nikon D810 and tripod, then wait patiently for people to clear the frame.

The result is a dreamlike vision of a country seemingly devoid of people. If the project seems anti-social, well, it was. Bakyoni loved seeing China entirely on his own. “It was perfect for me, just with my camera,” he says.