“Love accommodations are a singular and deeply ingrained a part of Japanese tradition,” says photographer François Prost. “These venues have a really ‘talkative’ high quality visually—they’re expressive of their design, reflecting points of native tradition, values, and even fantasies.”
Throughout a visit to Japan in 2023, when Prost was exhibiting an earlier sequence of works known as Gents’s Membership at a gallery in Tokyo, he launched into a highway journey from the capital metropolis to Shikoku Island within the southeast of the nation. With the gallery’s urging, he undertook a brand new mission whereas visiting, documenting the facades of affection accommodations—additionally generally known as “boutique” or “trend” accommodations—that provide rooms at low cost charges for transient stays.
Prost, who relies in Lyon, France, approaches his topics as options of the panorama that characterize a selected vernacular and spotlight quirky or taboo aspects of native tradition. Gentleman’s Membership, for instance, documented American strip golf equipment alongside a southerly route from Miami to Los Angeles in 2019. He has additionally sought out Ivorian, French, and Spanish nightclubs in sequence like After Celebration and discoteca.
“I select particular varieties of venues in every nation—these with distinct, usually kitschy or roadside structure—and {photograph} them throughout the area with a constant framing type,” Prost says. “I’m drawn to the aesthetic of those locations, and the way their facades reveal one thing concerning the individuals who inhabit or frequent them.”
His newest sequence, Love Resort, captures the unmissably colourful designs of roadside lodging, starting from ships and castles to flowers and a pink whale. “The venues goal to evoke a way of romance, escape, and fantasy, but in addition they have to really feel protected and alluring—not cheesy or sordid,” Prost says. “It’s why a few of these locations have an nearly ‘Disney-like’ aesthetic, playful but fastidiously curated.” Estimates of what number of love accommodations dot Japan vary from 10,000 to 40,000.
Prost has launched a brand new ebook for the sequence on Kickstarter that highlights the creativity and occasional hilarity of those notorious locations. “I hope viewers are struck by the unbelievable consideration to element and devotion to design that defines these areas in Japan,” Prost says.
You may help the ebook on Kickstarter till January 10, and keep up to date by following Prost on Instagram. Discover all of his tasks, together with extra books, on his web site.
