Motoyuki Daifu’s chaotic vision of the Japanese family home

Sometimes the answer to life’s most vexing problems is hiding in plain sight. In 2007, Motoyuki Daifu started a photography series titled Project Family, where he turned the camera on his family of seven living in an tiny house in Yokohama, Japan, as they aired their dirty laundry quite literally, with singular aplomb. The work, born out of need, upended notions of polite society and respectability politics by daring to reveal what happens only behind closed doors. 

“I decided to photograph my family because I was dissatisfied with them,” Daifu says. ​“There were too many people for such a small house. We didn’t have money. My relationship with my parents was also complicated. It didn’t feel like a ​‘successful’ life at all. But for me, that was just everyday life. What surprised me was that when I photographed it and showed it outside, I realised how much response it provoked.” 

Like every great makeover reality TV show, it’s the ​“before” scenes that confront and confound the chasm that lies between image and truth. But amidst the disorder and disarray, a deeper love prevails. ​“Even within the mess there is a certain sense of dignity in the way it is photographed,” Daifu says of the work, now collected in the new monograph, My family is a pubis so I cover It in pretty panties (Little Big Man Books).

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As a young student, Daifu looked to the work of Nobuyoshi Araki and Daido Moriyama, whose snapshot style aesthetic informed his early approach. But as the ongoing series continued, he found inspiration from photographers like Nan Goldin, Nick Waplington, and Richard Billingham, who crafted intimate portraits of family that could only be seen by an insider looking out. 

Crafted with the same love and care as a family photo album, Daifu’s monograph endears us to the discomforting realities of truth – within the disorder and alienation born of modern life, we must find a way to bridge the divide. For Daifu, it was photography, and his family accepted the camera’s unflinching eye in their midst, despite the fact they didn’t necessarily understand his intentions. ​“My family once told me: ​‘Take prettier pictures. What’s the point of photographing dirty things? It’s a waste of film,’” he says. 

Taken individually, Daifu’s photographs appear prosaic scenes of mess, a moment to thrill the likes of Marie Kondo and discomfit germaphobes. But collectively, they form a landscape of family and home, and finding one’s place among the chaos. ​“Photography is only ever a fragment, so I don’t feel the kind of embarrassment as if I were exposing myself completely, down to the most private parts. My work is just one small slice of my family’s life. It never feels like I am revealing everything,” Daifu says. 

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“What I always realise, however,” he continues, ​“is that if you look closely at the things around you, what seems ordinary to you can appear very unusual from the outside. Until I photographed my home and showed it to others, I never recognised it as something unique.”

My family is a pubis so I cover them in pretty panties by Motoyuki Daifu is published by Little Big Man.

Miss Rosen is a freelance arts and photography writer, follow her on X.

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