Oases of love in Romanian prisons

When Romania joined the European Union in 2007, the country had to make a number of changes to comply with the new status. Among these changes was the need to introduce a "sex room" in each prison — a place where prisoners could spend time alone with their partners or spouses.

Over the next few years, Romanian photographer Cosmin Bumbuc filmed these new premises in all 40 prisons in Romania. The result was a photo project called Intimate Room ("Intimate Room") - a visual catalog of artificially created spaces in order for those in prison to feel like normal people again.

In fact, these rooms are just slightly different detention cells that must meet the requirements of the European Union. According to the law, every prisoner has the right to a two-hour meeting with his spouse every three months. If a prisoner marries while already in prison, he has the right to spend 48 hours after the wedding in an intimate room, as well as the right to monthly visits in the first year after the wedding.

Bumbutz first photographed an intimate room in prison in 2008, when he filmed a couple before and after a date in this room. As a result, the photographer decided to shoot empty rooms, because the people in the frame distracted the viewer's attention from the space itself, which in itself is quite expressive.

The Intimate Room photo project received the Grand Prix in the aRchitecture category at the Sony World Photography Awards photo contest in 2015.