ONE MORNING, as his parents argued behind him, Hajime Kimura opened the front door and stepped out into the world. “As soon as I closed it,” he recalls, “the fight disappeared. I became part of the good family I had invented.” He was still a child, yet already beginning to shape a private mythology — a story told not only to classmates but also to himself. “Eventually,” he says, “the lie became almost real.”
That long-held fiction lies at the heart of Family of Lies, Kimura’s most personal and quietly arresting work to date. Recently exhibited at Libris Kobaco in Fukuoka, the project brought together re-edited family photographs, childhood drawings, and mirrors onto which blurred images were transferred — surfaces that reflected not only his fragmented memories, but also the viewer’s own presence, caught within them. Kimura partially recreated the interior of his family home, not as a nostalgic gesture, but as a kind of psychological space, inhabited as much by absence as by image. Visitors moved through hushed rooms where drawings, texts and mirrors invited them to step inside a memory that was not their own.
It was this deeply intimate project that led us to speak with Kimura, to explore the emotional and conceptual terrain of his work — and how turning it into both an exhibition and a book became as much an act of reckoning as a gentle release. “Trying to remember was already difficult,” he says. “Then to shape those memories into art, and show them to strangers — that involves pain. But if it becomes too personal, it just ends up as your own sealed story. You have to learn to look from a third-party perspective.”
This project is about the imaginary family I created and carried for more than fifteen years — until the lie almost became real.
Family of Lies also lives on as a photobook, published by Three Books as the first title in their koe project series. Within its pages, Kimura pairs fragmentary texts with images that hover just beyond clear sight — ghosted family scenes, faint childhood drawings, photographs rendered so softly they seem about to slip away. The book becomes less a document than a tender object, inviting readers to turn each page as if handling someone else’s fragile keepsakes. “Most of my memories replay like silent films,” he says. “I remember textures and shapes more than colours.” That atmosphere permeates the book, mirroring the delicately unsettled experience of standing before his mirrors in the exhibition.
Born in 1982 and raised in Chiba prefecture just outside Tokyo, Kimura originally studied architecture and anthropology before turning to photography in 2006. Now regarded as one of Japan’s foremost photographic artists, with significant international recognition, his practice has long explored the fragile edges of memory and place — from the traditional bear hunters of Matagi, through disappearing communities in Tebajima, to the imagined fossils of Correspondence and the subtle tangle of football and conflict in Mišo Bukumirović. Snowflakes Dog Man, published by CEIBA in 2019, marked an earlier turn towards personal history, while more recent projects in Serbia and Japan continue to probe what he calls “the certainty of memory.”
And yet, something about Family of Lies feels unmistakably shared. It speaks to the private fictions many of us carry — those small, necessary truths we invent to keep going. In bringing his own into view, Kimura allows us to reflect on ours. The result is a body of work that doesn’t merely look back, but asks what it means to hold on to a story — and what might happen when we finally decide to set it down.
It’s here that we began our conversation with Kimura — about memory, invention, and what it means to finally face the fictions we carry.
Hajime Kimura: I carried a false image of my family for more than fifteen years — a small lie I invented as a child, until eventually it felt almost real. “Family of Lies” was my way of finally facing it.
M-ARTLENS: What inspired you to create Family of Lies?
HAJIME KIMURA: My main reason for this project and publishing a book is to examine my past. To put it another way, when I look back at my past family-related works — In Search of Lost Memories, Path in Between, and Snowflakes Dog Man — I have wondered over time why I was so obsessed with my family. The book Family of Lies was started from that question.
I had been experimenting with different approaches in my past family works, but I found that there were common themes, and I wanted to preserve them in written form as much as possible. The reason I preferred text to photographs was that words were more likely to be accurate and less ambiguous than visual media. I also felt that the text I left in the book Family of Lies would allow me to look back on my memories of the past, and at the same time, it would serve as a guide for my future work on different themes.
As for what motivated me to create this book, I think it was my curiosity about my past that led me to delve into my faded memories when both of my parents were gone. Time has allowed me to have self-reflection on my life with a clearer perspective.
Trying to remember was already difficult. Then to shape those memories into art, and show them to strangers — that involves pain.
What does the title Family of Lies mean to you?
Family of Lies is not a story about a family member other than myself who was a liar or a criminal. Still, it was rather a simple explanation of the “imaginary family” that I had painted in my mind, and I told my friends and acquaintances as if it were a family that existed.
When I was a small child, I did not like my parents, with whom I fought every day, and I always wished that my own family was a better one. I couldn’t tell my elementary school classmates about it, so I pretended to have a good family. That went on for a long time. That time lasted until I was about 25 years old. So, for more than 15 years, I talked about my false image of my family mixed in somewhere.
In doing so, the false family image somehow became like a real family. Family of Lies depicts what happens to me when I tell a lie for more than 15 years, starting with a small lie. It also describes how I came to terms with my lies and decided to create the work.
How did you choose which photos and memories to include in the exhibition?
It is difficult to explain in a few words which image or memory I choose, but this exhibition is mainly composed of drawings, photographs, and footage. The drawings came from my childhood memories of ideal family images. The pictures are re-edited family photos from when I was between the ages of 17 and 28, which I used in my past works, such as In Search of Lost Memories, Path in Between, and Snowflakes Dog Man, and then transferred to mirror instead of paper. The reason I mixed my 17–28 years old is because I was looking at family photos taken between the time of my mother’s death and my father’s death, and I couldn’t recall much of what I remember from that time.
Can you tell us more about the mirror in your family home?
It’s essential to use mirrors in this exhibition. I still have a wall mirror I used as a child at the entrance of my house. When I was a child, I did not like looking in the mirror very much. When I looked in the mirror, I saw my reflection in it. The mirror was a figurative object that represented the state of my memory and mental state. When I am picturing a false family in my mind, I must, of course, be a member of the false family.
Therefore, I did not like to see my true self reflected in the mirror. Around 2011, when I started creating works about my family forcing me to confront my father’s demise, I gradually began to see myself reflected in the mirror. In many ways, mirrors are reflections of myself at that time. In this project, I transferred family photos from a time when my memories were vague onto the mirror. All of the transferred images are blurred and have holes in them.
The mirror is visible through the holes, so the viewer’s image reflects in them. The underlying theme of Family of Lies is the coexistence of past and present. Therefore, it was essential for me to have an image of the past when my memories were vague and my present self reflected in the mirror at the same time. For this reason, I used mirrors as my central motif.
Why did you decide to work in black and white for this project?
As I mentioned in response to a previous question, the images in this exhibition were selected and re-edited from past family-related works. The approximate dates of production are 2011–2016; however, I made the footage work in 2023. The photos are in colour because I used images from family albums, but the other pictures are mainly in black and white. The reason is that, in the process of recalling my memories, most of them replay in my mind in a form similar to a silent black-and-white film. Of course, there are times when the images are in colour, but I remember fragments of images more for their detailed textures and shapes than for their colour information. I’m not sure how other people remember their past, but I retain a lot of non-colourful details, and black-and-white photographs are more suitable for conveying this information.
Was it difficult to photograph something so personal?
It is difficult to answer this question with a simple yes or no. It may depend on the kind of content. For example, if you are trying to deal with a subject like mine, which is related to my negative memories, I don’t think it will be easy. This process is due to the difficulty of trying to remember, as well as the challenges and pain involved in conveying those memories in a work of art and then presenting it to an unspecified audience. At least, that is how I have felt through my family’s work.
It was essential for me to have an image of the past when my memories were vague and my present self reflected in the mirror at the same time
On the other hand, if the memory is more positive, even if it’s a personal story, I think it’s not so difficult. In many cases, I already have a lot of information about individual stories, so it’s essential to choose what to say and which points to expand on. It isn’t necessary to push universal social aspects to the forefront, but if it becomes too personal, it will ultimately become just your own story.
Therefore, it is essential to train oneself to view things from a third-party perspective at least once in a while. In this sense, I think this subject takes a certain amount of time to create, whether positive or negative.
What was the most emotional moment while working on this series?
The most important and emotionally charged moment in this series was just recently. To be precise, I think it was when I decided to write about the “false family image” that I have had in my head for a long time to assemble the content of this Family of Lies. Around that time, I was very emotional as I thought about how I could connect the stories of my childhood and my mature years to the work I had done before. The works I created between 2011 and 2016 were about my own family, but they were more like works for the sake of making them. It is complicated to explain in words, but I think they were very well edited and packaged as works of art. This time, Family of Lies is mainly based on my interviews, and I recall that I was very emotional because it delves into the deeper psychology behind why I created a work related to my family.
What do you hope visitors feel when they walk through the exhibition?
It is difficult to explain in a few words, but the central theme of the Family of Lies is the transition of memories and emotions. I want visitors to experience the transition of my memories when they visit the exhibition. In part, inspired by my childhood memories of my family, I created drawings that served as clues, each accompanied by a corresponding text. The space is bright, and my feelings at the time are also composed in the sense of an “ideal family image” rather than a “false family image.” In the latter half of the episode, the space is also darkened, with a mirror transferred by a photo and a video work of an old television set that belonged to his father. As my emotions shift, I focus on the somewhat negative and guilty feelings I have toward the false family image I have created in my mind and what my authentic self reveals through the mirror. I hope that visitors will experience the illusion that they have entered my memories and that they will be able to relive some memories through the overlap of my daily small experiences with their past.
How does the photobook Family of Lies connect with the exhibition?
The similarity between the book and the exhibition is in their representation of “false family images” in distinct ways. Although the book is primarily written in text, the exhibition differs from the book and consists mainly of visual media. Therefore, visitors can enjoy the exhibition even after reading the book. Visitors will be more interested in the book’s content after seeing the exhibition. In the book, I have written chronologically about the episodes in my family’s history from when I can remember to the present and how they have been transformed into works of art. The exhibition is more of a retrospective of my past, as the works have already been exhibited before. The exhibition’s order is to go back to the past, starting with episodes related to them. Although the way to tell the story is different, the context of how the “false family image” was created remains the same.
Your past books, like Tebajima and Correspondence, also explore memory. What draws you to this theme?
The two books, Tebajima and Correspondence, were commissioned by a company and a foundation and produced as part of an artist-in-residency program rather than as a long-term personal project. Correspondence was prototyped in 2017 during a month-and-a-half residency in Torres Vedras, Portugal, and was published over time by a French publisher in 2023. Having no connection to Torres Vedras, I considered what I could do in the area and learned that a Napoleonic invasion had occurred in 1810.
Since then, many historic buildings and fortifications have remained to this day. The place is famous for its rich historical legacy. And I was inspired by the keywords “archaeology” and “excavation” at the time. Additionally, the area is geographically close to the Atlantic Ocean, and ammonite fossils have been excavated from a plateau that is cut directly off the coastline. This crustal deformation indicates that the land was under the sea in prehistoric times. I predicted that this area would still exist 100 years in the future as an active excavation site. The garbage and carcasses that are discarded on the ground may be replaced by fossils in the distant future and become essential materials for someone in the future to learn about the past.
I realised that my motivation for creativity was strongly related to my roots, environment, and background
Therefore, as the central concept of this project, I wondered if communication between the past, the present, and the future would be possible through abandoned objects on the ground or, assuming that I am a person from the future, I decided to create an imaginary story about doing what will happen in the future in advance.
Another project, Tebajima, was similarly produced within the context of an artist-in-residence program, with a residency held in 2022 and publication by a Japanese publisher in 2024. The book was proceeded in collaboration with a designer, and I was involved in the photography and photo editing. The project focuses on Japan’s declining population and is set on a small island with a population of about 50 people. I am Japanese, but I had never heard of this island until I was offered to work on this project.
The area around the island was a prime fishing ground and home to nearly 1,000 people in its heyday of the 1970s; however, climate change and population decline have rendered it a place that is likely to disappear soon. There are no cars, restaurants, or stores on the island, and people must take the boat that connects the island to the mainland when they need anything for their lives. The majority of the islanders are elderly, and I wanted to know what they are feeling in their daily lives.
I was also interested in the traditional architecture of the island. Houses built using construction methods unchanged since the Edo period were quietly decayed after their owners left the island. If a house represents the memory of the people who have lived in it, I had the impression that time has stopped and only a faint memory of the past remains in the houses that no longer have owners.
I thought about how to express the memory of the island and decided to compose the images mainly with the words of the current residents, the houses, and the islanders whose faces are not in the photographs. The reason I chose not to show their faces is that there are many villages in Japan, other than this island, that may disappear shortly. I wanted the audience to consider what could happen in such places all over Japan. I was strongly interested in the transition of memories between those that have already faded and those that still live.
Do you feel your view of your family has changed since completing this work?
In conclusion, yes. Rather than something triggering a significant change, it was more like a gradual change that began several years before I published the book Family of Lies. When my father passed away in 2011, I had no intention of creating work related to the family. However, about 10 years later, I began to examine my past works and reflect on what I was genuinely interested in. In the process, I realised that my motivation for creativity was strongly related to my roots, environment, and background.
In other words, they could be such as “something I cannot escape” or “karma.” While I was thinking about this in a daze, I was offered to publish the book Family of Lies one day. I was lucky to have the opportunity to publish the book and to share my story with many people while exhibiting it. I think I changed my mind a little after that. Still, even before publishing the book, I had considered how I could overcome the demise of my family, or I had been reexamining my life history objectively for several years, so I gradually became more honest with myself rather than making drastic changes.
Are you planning any future projects related to memory or personal history?
Currently, I am working on two projects, one of which I began in 2016. A project involves football and war. I have been playing football since I was very young, and I remember a specific person when I watched on TV at the time. I was about 8 years old. I was watching a football match that was held in Japan. The project began with the person’s identity, who that was. Over time, I discovered that he was a member of a football team from the former Yugoslavia. In Japan, professional football leagues, known as the J-League, have been established since 1993, and famous foreign football players have come to Japan.
The history of Japan and the former Yugoslav countries from the early 1990s to around 2020 was completely different. I wanted to know how the 30 years affected people in a country that shared a common language, had a passion for football, and recognised it as a sport yet was also deeply connected to war. I wanted to follow the life of a particular person involved in Yugoslavian football that I saw as a child and explore the different periods that were happening simultaneously. So, this project began as a personal curiosity about a slight fragment of memory, but if I had pursued it, I would have ended up with a much larger theme.
I wanted to investigate how much our perception of the Great Tokyo Air Raid influences our understanding of it as a historical event.
The other is a project in Japan related to the 1945 Great Tokyo Air Raid. The reason why I decided to start this project was the existence of war-wounded trees. War-wounded trees are those that survived the air raid and remain today, primarily in the eastern part of Tokyo. Unlike Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were hit by atomic bombs, the Great Tokyo Air Raid was not that widely known worldwide after the war ended, but more than 100,000 people died. The U.S. military dropped a new type of firebomb on the eastern part of Tokyo to burn it to the ground only in one night.
After the war ended, Tokyo took different steps from other cities and was among the first cities to achieve postwar reconstruction, including hosting the 1964 Olympic Games. When I watched footage recorded in the 1960s and 1970s, a period of rapid economic growth, all of them looked positive for the future. After that time, Japan’s economic bubble burst in 1990, and now 80 years have passed since the end of the war. Today, few people are aware of the existence of war-wounded trees, and few urban forms remind us of the past.
During my research, I learned that one of the air raid survivors, who was a child at the time, was unable to trace the location of his parent’s house and that even the memories of those involved were difficult to recall due to the significant changes in the cityscape. Considering these facts, I wanted to investigate how much our perception of the Great Tokyo Air Raid influences our understanding of it as a historical event. The project examines the “changing forms of memory” in the postwar period from three perspectives: trees, people, and cities.
LONG AFTER our conversation, certain images remain: the hush of a hallway just after the door clicks shut, blurred faces hovering on mirrors, a boy stepping outside into the story he needed to tell.
Hajime Kimura’s work does not ask for our sympathy, or even our understanding. It simply offers a tender space where memory and invention blur, where small private fictions are allowed to breathe.
Standing there — inside his quiet rooms of shadow and light — it’s hard not to think of the gentle myths we all keep close. The ones that soften sharper truths, the ones that help us stay. In sharing his own, Kimura gives us permission to look again at ours, and perhaps, with a kind of hesitant grace, to begin letting them go.
For more information: hajimekimura.net
