Artist Lori Nix creates painstakingly detailed miniatures of bleak, post-apocalyptic landscapes:

“I loved Towering Inferno, and it just happened the other day, in Dubai,” she says, referring to the 34-story tower that went up in flames on November 18th. The diorama, Control Room, which was inspired by Chernobyl, brings to mind Hurricane Sandy and New York’s flooded subways. While the collection started a few years ago, Nix has added new scenes along the way (the subway and anatomy classroom dioramas above were completed last month).

“Our life as we know it is spinning wildly out of control and we may not be able to finance our way back to a healthy planet,” says Nix. This is The City’s premise, though Nix doesn’t specify exactly how human beings have screwed up the planet–and, ultimately, become extinct. “It could be climate change, nuclear annihilation, a virus. I leave it up to the reader to decide. But if you were the last person left alive, these are the scenes you might find.”