ROUGH TRADE EDITIONS No.17

Nicotine-stained walls, garish and dated design, practical wipe-clean furniture: the Japanese love hotel rooms documented in Passion 202aren’t perhaps the environment everyone fantasises about for a romantic rendezvous. Photographed on 35mm film with an almost forensic approach, this series by photographer Laura Lewis uncovers the rooms that numerous couples have hired for intimacy, anonymity and privacy. The series focuses on the rooms’ dated, slightly grubby, and gross-yet-beautiful interiors. We are shown the articles and objects that act as the punctuation to sex, and are guided into the transient world of rooms hired by the hour, or by the night, for lovers’ fleeting encounters.