2012↗
Shanshui
From a distance, a landscape. Up close, photographs made at different times and positions.
Selected works2013 / Archival inkjet print
Central
Placing the sun among the mountains rearranges a space that photography cannot ordinarily show.
- Artist
- He Fa
- Date
- 2013
- Medium
- Archival inkjet print
- Dimensions
- 350cm × 200cm
Complete chapter contents
The sun in a relief
Central began with an ancient relief encountered during a journey: the sun was carved into the middle of a range of mountains. He Fa brought that spatial relationship into photography, assembling fragments so that a sun ordinarily seen above the horizon could appear among the peaks.
A reorganized landscape
The work continues the photographic assembly of this period while organizing its composition around a specific formal problem. It offers a landscape constructed from multiple viewpoints rather than a single panoramic exposure. The portfolio records an inkjet print measuring 350 × 200 cm.
Looking closely at the sun’s position
The sun is small in the complete work; the portfolio preserves a separate view of that area. Orange discs sit among trees, mountain forms and overlapping photographs, making the artist’s idea of the center of the mountains visible as a compositional decision.
Where a centre is placed and where it is seen
The title Central specifies a place to look for, while dense photographic fragments repeatedly divert attention from it. A designated compositional centre need not coincide with what first catches the eye. Moving the sun into the mountain is the artist’s decision to rearrange pictorial relationships; the looking required to find it means that this decision is not immediately apparent.
Archive reading, 30 September 2026 · Site editorial interpretation, not an artist’s statement. Sources: He Fa Portfolio (PDF), p. 6. English is an editorial translation; document titles are translated where needed.
A high-resolution file linked to the work
The retained file center.tif measures 28,111 × 15,883 pixels. Its embedded preview and a sampled image correspond to the composition of Central on page 6 of He Fa Portfolio (PDF), connecting the portfolio image to a traceable high-resolution source. This correspondence is not a validation of the complete file and does not establish it as the sole or final exhibition output.
Archival file comparison · 30 September 2026. Based on the retained TIFF’s embedded preview, a sampled image and He Fa Portfolio (PDF), p. 6. English is an editorial translation.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT / PORTFOLIO
While travelling, I happened upon an interesting ancient relief in which the sun was carved into the centre of the mountains. For a photographer, the sun can only ever be above the horizon, so I placed it in the centre of the mountains too.
Translated from the artist’s Chinese portfolio statement.
Works & details
Archive note
Prepared from page 6 of the artist’s retained portfolio, He Fa Portfolio 3. Chinese titles follow the source; English titles are translations for this site unless already given in English. Images retain their full composition. Dimensions refer to the version listed in that portfolio.
Continue exploring
CLOSE READING / 2026 CURATORIAL INTERPRETATION
Central
If the sun moves, does photography’s promise change too?
The sun is small, but the decision is large. Placed among the mountains, it becomes a new compositional centre. Photographs with separate origins serve a position that no single exposure witnessed. The work does more than manufacture a digital spectacle. It makes the differing spatial rules of photography and relief apparent: one luminous circle passes between media and changes how an image asks to be believed.
Central also challenges any simple story of relinquished control. It contains an unmistakable authorial decision: this element will go here. A landscape emerges not only from the contingent accumulation of fragments but from insistence on one placement. Pairing the work with Cocktail is more revealing than calling both photographic collage. One delegates position to a compositional idea, the other to file size. Different ways of exercising control coexist in the same year.
The limits of this reading
The artist’s account of the sun’s position is a creative proposition, not a law of astronomy or photographic optics.
Sources for this reading
Based on He Fa Portfolio 3, p. 6, and the published 2020 text What Is Shixiang?
Continue in writing
Follow works back to signed texts, with writing at the time, later reflection and participant accounts identified separately.
What Is Shixiang?
Reading connectionWhat Is Shixiang? looks back from 2020 at Shanshui and Central, then turns to photographic roles, the naming of I, See, You and publication choices. It proposes eight and a half encounters and imagines a museum holding a thousand people’s traces: retaining images while making room for another meeting.
Work record
Central, 2013. Archival inkjet print. He Fa’s role: Artist: He Fa.
- Work / series
- Central
- Date
- 2013
- Medium
- Archival inkjet print
- He Fa’s role
- Artist: He Fa
- Catalogue section
- Selected works
Cite this record: Central · 2013 · Artist: He Fa · https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/central-2013
TAKE A PATH ACROSS
Other paths from this work.
Language in transit
A sun changes its position
CentralGewu Studio / Products and Spatial Experiments
Central moves a relief’s sun into photography; Gewu’s trophy proposal combines sun, ploughshare and a V shape. Both transfer motifs, but one has a documented finished work while the other remains a studio design draft.
Continue from this work ↗Read the source materials
- Artist’s statementArtist statement in the portfolio ↗
The portfolio statement explicitly begins with a relief encountered while travelling and places the sun among mountains; this is the artist’s stated compositional decision.
- Period documentJinhua Award medal and trophy proposal ↗
Pages 1–9 of the Golden Plough Award draft combine a ploughshare, sun and V shape; the draft supplies no selection or manufacture record.
- Artist’s statementArtist statement in the portfolio ↗
Language in transit
One more decision among the mountains
Shanshui combines separate views into mountains; Central brings a sun from a relief into its mountainous image. Both make a whole that no single exposure witnessed. One accumulates acts of looking; the other emphasizes the decision to place an element in a particular position.
Continue from this work ↗Read the source materials
- Artist’s statement1,025 photographs and the trace of walking ↗
The statement on defence page 7 describes an experiment with 1,025 Siguniang photographs, combining different viewpoints as traces of walking; that number is not generalized to every work.
- Artist’s statementArtist statement in the portfolio ↗
The portfolio statement explicitly begins with a relief encountered while travelling and places the sun among mountains; this is the artist’s stated compositional decision.
- Artist’s statement1,025 photographs and the trace of walking ↗
Rules and choices
Two arrangements within the same year
Central insists on placing the sun at a particular position among the mountains; Cocktail organizes photographic adjacency through file size. Both are montages from 2013. One foregrounds the artist’s decision about an element; the other delegates part of composition to a rule.
Continue from this work ↗Read the source materials
- Artist’s statementArtist statement in the portfolio ↗
The portfolio statement explicitly begins with a relief encountered while travelling and places the sun among mountains; this is the artist’s stated compositional decision.
- Artist’s statementArtist statement in the portfolio ↗
The portfolio statement explicitly makes JPEG file size the sorting criterion and describes settling and floating; numerical sorting is not equated with judgement of people.
- Artist’s statementArtist statement in the portfolio ↗
2026-10-04 / ARCHIVAL ADDITION
Source materials, process and versions
Central needs to be viewed as a complete image, a detail and a written account. A small overview obscures the repeated bright discs among overlapping landscape fragments. The colourful rectangular collage from Haha World is separately documented.
FROM HERE, ELSEWHERE
Passages between works
- Meaning on the way
The sun’s position in a relief enters photography, changing the image’s obedience to geographical placement.
Related records in the archive
- Shanshui ↗2012
- Untitled ↗2012–2014