He FaPhotography, theatre and film

Artistic practice

He Fa began with photography. Mountain Beyond Mountains (2012) is assembled from many partial photographs. From a distance it reads as a landscape; at close range it separates into different times, focal points and camera positions. The viewer has to move back and forth to read the work between whole and detail.

In 2012, He Fa participated in co-founding Gewu Studio, working on the market side and contributing to design discussions. In the same year, Song Bowen completed the 3D-printed lighting work Twelve Water Lamps. This studio period brought photography, product design, digital fabrication and communication into one working environment.

He Fa founded P4 Theatre in Beijing in 2015. P4 has worked in abandoned factories, a sixteen-square-metre office, boxing gyms, bookstores, industrial sites and private rooms through performances, open calls, workshops, filming, writing and shared life. Spatial limits, the identities of participants and the place of the audience all shape the work.

Between 2020 and 2023, Howler on the Rooftop, Iceberg, Purple Action and Love Theatre / Accusing the Love Centrists approached private emotion, bodily distance, the pressure of being watched and intimate relations from different positions. He Fa’s roles across these projects included initiation, organization, production and co-production.

In 2023–2024, He Fa completed the approximately 156-minute Human Surrender Faction. The film grew from years of rehearsal, shared life and filming inside P4, and it places the director and the camera inside those relations. Since completing the film, he has continued to work with its voices, dialogue, frames, short films and writing.