2020↗
Paper Screening
Drawings are held up on stage as materials, bodies and conversation enter the act of looking.
Collaborative practice2020 / Screenings, collective discussion and an ongoing participatory practice
P4 Screenings: Reflections Between Us
Moving from watching films to sharing personal accounts, the project calls its discussions “self-screening.”
- He Fa’s role
- Co-organisation, programme rules and authored project descriptions
- First cycle
- Ended 16 August 2020; September account records 15 screenings
- Programme revision
- November 2020; the signed article reports nearly 40 sessions
- Location
- P4 Theater, Diaosutai, Beijing
Complete chapter contents
From screening to self-screening
At the beginning of 2020, He Fa and his P4 collaborators began watching recordings of theatre within the venue, then gradually opened the sessions to others. His September account records fifteen screenings and discussions in a first cycle ending on 16 August, and says he attended every one. A film supplied the starting point; afterwards, participants sat under the stage lights to share impressions, associations and personal experiences. Their accounts became a second “screening,” shifting the gathering towards listening to one another.
The second cycle connected the film, a break and discussion, with fewer than fifteen participants per session. Selections rotated through death, sexuality, self-portraiture and history, and participants could propose their own videos. The September rules explicitly left discussions unrecorded to preserve privacy, establishing a different relation to documentation from P4’s camera-centred projects.
Reorganising the programme into five parts
In November, He Fa reorganised the experience of nearly forty sessions into paper, screen, self, glass and dream screenings, proposing a programme from Sunday afternoon to Monday morning. Paper Screening developed as a distinct practice that moved from drawing into conversation. This page records the programme’s two stages; the extended timetable remains the published proposal rather than a claim that every component ran every week.
Moving image & related documents
Archive note
Compiled from contemporary public calls, project descriptions and later records. Retrospective accounts and announcements retain their distinct dates; English translations were prepared for this archive.
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Work record
P4 Screenings: Reflections Between Us, 2020. Screenings, collective discussion and an ongoing participatory practice. He Fa’s role: Co-organisation, programme rules and authored project descriptions.
- Work / series
- P4 Screenings: Reflections Between Us
- Date
- 2020
- Medium
- Screenings, collective discussion and an ongoing participatory practice
- He Fa’s role
- Co-organisation, programme rules and authored project descriptions
- Catalogue section
- Collaborative practice
Cite this record: P4 Screenings: Reflections Between Us · 2020 · Co-organisation, programme rules and authored project descriptions · https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/p4-screenings
TAKE A PATH ACROSS
Other paths from this work.
Rules and choices
Changing the basis of an order
P4 Screenings: Reflections Between UsCocktail
Cocktail orders photographs by file size; P4 Screenings rotates selections through four themes. Both establish ordering conditions, but one forms a static image while the other also lets participants propose their own moving images.
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- 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.
- Period documentFrom screening to self-screening ↗
The September 2020 rules specify four rotating film themes, participants’ own videos and the decision not to record discussions.
- Artist’s statementArtist statement in the portfolio ↗
- DOCUMENT RECORD
Keeping and losing
Recording a review, protecting discussion
P4 Screenings: Reflections Between UsFa’s review
The Fa’s review list retains four recordings; P4 Screenings’ September rules explicitly leave discussions unrecorded. Both involve speaking before others, but one preserves multiple videos while the other protects an exchange from being recorded.
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- Period documentFour recordings ↗
Fa He Work Sample List lists four Fa’s review recordings, their durations and the date 28 April 2017; the list is not a reconstruction of the entire event.
- Period documentFrom screening to self-screening ↗
The September 2020 rules specify four rotating film themes, participants’ own videos and the decision not to record discussions.
- Period documentFour recordings ↗
Keeping and losing
Sometimes recording, sometimes not
P4 Screenings: Reflections Between UsKill the Rose: 3P—Watching, Performing, Recording
P4 Screenings’ September rules keep discussion unrecorded; 3P requires at least three publications in a month. An encounter may need preservation or privacy. Together these arrangements make recording a responsibility to choose, rather than an automatic good.
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- Period documentFrom screening to self-screening ↗
The September 2020 rules specify four rotating film themes, participants’ own videos and the decision not to record discussions.
- Period documentA parallel creative process ↗
He Fa’s signed 3P call requires at least three publications within one month, retained separately from the play’s director, writer and 3P participant lists.
- Period documentFrom screening to self-screening ↗
FROM HERE, ELSEWHERE
Passages between works
Related records in the archive
- Paper Screening ↗2020
- Shixiang ↗2019–2020
- P4 Theater ↗2015–present