Have you ever been to a pay-by-the-hour hotel in Seoul? You guessed it; these hotels are not for taking a nap during a layover but for quick sex and affairs. These Love Hotels are not exclusive to Korea but are found in many countries. New York photographer Grace Kim went to Seoul and she brings to light the residue and remnants of these rooms, after they’ve been used. Her photographs are on display at the Melanie Flood Projects in Brooklyn until October 7th.
“Love hotels in South Korea are commonly known to be where lovers go to carry on secret affairs. I was given access to photograph the rooms of a love hotel in Seoul after couples had checked out and before the rooms had been cleaned. Korean culture has many rules and formalities that have always felt very restrictive to me, so I was intrigued by the idea of being where I shouldn’t be and observing things I shouldn’t be observing — remnants of love affairs that were presumably forbidden as well. Absence of color, like the absence of identity, extracts the bed from their original context and realism, leaving space for personal projections and imagination.”
