My Family Is a Pubis so I Cover It in Pretty Panties

Daifu's colourful and chaotic images of his own family life are an unfiltered record of love, friction and communal existence

In Japan, where family affairs are typically kept private, Motoyuki Daifu's (born 1985) photographs put forward a raw, unfiltered portrayal of family life. My Family Is a Pubis, so I Cover It in Pretty Panties pushes against cultural norms, airing out what Daifu dubs "dirty laundry," with no hesitation. In rejecting the sanitised and idealised images often populating family albums, he embraces the beautiful chaos of familial existence-its messiness, love, tension and intimacy-all unfolding in the tight quarters of his family home in suburban Yokohama. His images, spanning 13 years since 2005, observe his family with both proximity and distance, reflecting his own sense of detachment from them. In their vibrant, overflowing compositions, they suggest that to truly understand a family, one must embrace its chaos. The scattered objects, overlapping lives and unavoidable closeness all speak to the ways in which family shapes and consumes us.