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At present, I am travelling through Japan to shoot and document Japanese Showa love hotels, with their curious beds, bathtubes and colorful decorations. This project, which is titled MOMOYO-ROKU (which in japanese litterarly means "one hundred nights record"), has been ongoing for 2 years. With MOMOYO-ROKU I want to focus on Showa Aesthetic, trying to give a personal reinterpretation, as i believe we need to preserve it in the future as part of the Japanese culture.
Apart from photography, I also co-founded and currently run open-air contemporary art space Jinny Street Gallery in Shibuya,Tokyo.
Lorenzo Menghi
I am a photographer and visual artist based in Tokyo. My photographic production is mainly focused on fine art nude photography.At present, I am travelling through Japan to shoot and document Japanese Showa love hotels, with their curious beds, bathtubes and colorful decorations. This project, which is titled MOMOYO-ROKU (which in japanese litterarly means "one hundred nights record"), has been ongoing for 2 years. With MOMOYO-ROKU I want to focus on Showa Aesthetic, trying to give a personal reinterpretation, as i believe we need to preserve it in the future as part of the Japanese culture.
Apart from photography, I also co-founded and currently run open-air contemporary art space Jinny Street Gallery in Shibuya,Tokyo.
I still vividly remember the feeling I experienced the first time I entered Room 303 at the Sugamo Chateau Hotel, where I took my first shot for this project.
The rotating bed towering in the middle of the room gave off an overwhelming aura, and the soft light from the colorful chandelier was gently piercing trough the dusty and moist air permeating all the room.
It took me just an instant to forget about time and space .
It felt as if I got transported into a spaceship surrounded by gloomy lights and shiny walls, an utopistic cocoon that was shielding me from the real world outside.
I was just standing there, somehow feeling myself witness to the dreams and the passion of all the lovers that passed by that room long time ago, escaping their ordinary lives.
I started to seek for more and more hotels to take, this simple passion grown into a real journey to pursue the beauty of the Showa Love Hotels and their dreamlike atmospheres, once theaters of passionated loves or just one night lasting adventures.
MOMOYO-ROKU (which literally means "One Hundred Nights Record) aims to convey a story or a visual sensation to communicate a feeling about the atmosphere which existed exclusively within each one of those particular rooms i visited, with the ultimate purpose of collecting 100 shots of them.
The rotating bed towering in the middle of the room gave off an overwhelming aura, and the soft light from the colorful chandelier was gently piercing trough the dusty and moist air permeating all the room.
It took me just an instant to forget about time and space .
It felt as if I got transported into a spaceship surrounded by gloomy lights and shiny walls, an utopistic cocoon that was shielding me from the real world outside.
I was just standing there, somehow feeling myself witness to the dreams and the passion of all the lovers that passed by that room long time ago, escaping their ordinary lives.
I started to seek for more and more hotels to take, this simple passion grown into a real journey to pursue the beauty of the Showa Love Hotels and their dreamlike atmospheres, once theaters of passionated loves or just one night lasting adventures.
MOMOYO-ROKU (which literally means "One Hundred Nights Record) aims to convey a story or a visual sensation to communicate a feeling about the atmosphere which existed exclusively within each one of those particular rooms i visited, with the ultimate purpose of collecting 100 shots of them.
