An object
The Yellow River Flows Backwards
Light emerges through the surface and openings. This is an original photograph of The Yellow River Flows Backwards, illuminated.
Open the work record ↗EARLY CHAPTER / GEWU STUDIO / 2012–2013
Gewu Studio
Twelve Water Lamps. Water held in light.
Huanghe Niliu, from Twelve Water Lamps, 2012. Photograph by He Fa; lamp from the studio’s collaborative practice.
Archival photograph of the illuminated work.
Complete chapter contents
GEWU STUDIO
A passage from images to objects
First, the movement.
Then, a lamp.
Curves gather, separate and turn. Fine ripples follow larger folds. Light passes from within, revealing depth and shade across one continuous surface. A still object holds the gesture of moving water.
At Gewu Studio, photography, objects, space and communication shared the same room. For He Fa, this early chapter left a question that remains open: how can a way of seeing become something the body encounters?
Work and collaborationWater, in several forms
Five archival photographs · Open to see each full image
Close up, a fine ripple.
Step back, a whole movement.
Photography by He Fa. The lamps belong to Gewu Studio’s collaborative practice.
BETWEEN OBJECT AND IMAGE
An object passes
through several acts of looking.
From a co-created lamp to catalogue photography and another photographic work. Each passage retains its own identity.
In a publication
Looming Source
The work enters a catalogue. Photography, framing and a sequence of pages establish another viewing distance. Shown here is the photographic image from the catalogue.
Open the work record ↗
As photography
Wu
The Twelve Water Lamps series also becomes a photographic subject in Wu. This page has the photographic work’s own title, medium and dimensions. The passage follows the series; it does not identify all three images as the same lamp.
Open the work record ↗Work and collaboration
Twelve Water Lamps took shape through Gewu Studio’s collaborative practice in 2012. Referring to Ma Yuan’s Twelve Views of Water, it used parametric modelling and 3D printing to turn water patterns into lighting forms. The work was exhibited at Beijing’s LiangDian Design Center from December 2012 to January 2013.
He Fa co-founded Gewu Studio in 2012 and served as its artistic director, contributing photography, conceptual development, form exploration and artistic direction. The photographs on this page are by He Fa and hold his inquiry into form, light and viewing distance.
- Archive period
- 2012–2013
- Twelve Water Lamps co-created by
- Collaborative studio practice
- He Fa’s studio role
- Co-founder and artistic director; photography, conceptual development, form exploration and artistic direction
- Medium
- Studio collaboration, 3D printing and product design
GLOW STUDIO, visible in the photographs, is an early studio wordmark. The photographs retain their original appearance and the work names follow the archive. Photographic authorship and the collaborative making of the objects are recorded separately.
Historical records and further reading
Looming Source: a catalogue of twelve works
The retained GEWU Studio catalogue Looming Source is marked “2012–2013, Beijing.” It is organized around twelve lamps, with a catalogue, images and texts. Its sequence comprises Qiushui Jiongbo, Dongting Fengxi, Huanghe Niliu, Huanlang Piaopiao, Hantang Qingqian, Yunshu Langjuan, Yunsheng Canghai, Cengbo Dielang, Xiaori Hongshan, Huguang Lianyan, Changjiang Wanqing and Wuming; each has an English title in the source.
Looming Source credits He Fa as its photographic artist. Light, curved surfaces and openings enter a sequence of pages through changing viewpoints; photography becomes a way of looking across the twelve objects. The lamps belong to the studio’s collaborative practice, with photographic authorship and the making of the objects recorded separately.
Source documents: 源隐·源现, pp. 3, 5.
Concept and product catalogues for the 2012 graduation exhibition
The Concept Catalogue cover records an exhibition from 1 to 8 June 2012 at the fourth-floor gallery of Building 7, Central Academy of Fine Arts. Chapters titled “More Is Different,” “Arithmetic and Geometry in Nature,” “Making” and “Life Processes” connect natural forms, mathematical methods and the growth of form.
The contemporaneous Product Catalogue arranges the work into Twelve Water Lamps, pens and hats. Lamp entries record white 3D-printed nylon, the 220 V / 5 W energy-saving bulbs used at the time and different dimensions for individual examples. These entries preserve specific versions as the works took material and exhibition form.
Source documents: 概念图册（2012毕业设计展）; 产品图册（2012毕业设计展）.
From model to shade and light holder
The making statement in He Fa’s retained portfolio describes a sequence from parametric model to physical object and assembly: numerical relations define points and generate a model; volume and thickness are added and damaged faces repaired to prepare a print file; the printed parts are then adjusted, combined and tested. Three studio installation drafts preserve the assembly relationship between a slot in the shade, an upper ring and a copper light holder.
These texts connect the development of form with specific components. The installation drafts retain repeated specification entries and older template fields, so they are preserved as process documents.
Source documents: 何发作品集（出国之前目录版）; 洞庭风细说明书; 秋水迥波说明书; 黄河逆流说明书.
The modelling process also left moving images
The Twelve Water Lamps source directory contains two recordings of Rhino and Grasshopper. “capture-1(1).avi” runs 3 minutes, 0.467 seconds and moves among nodes, parameter sliders and changing curve-based forms. “yanshi 1.mp4” runs 2 minutes, 53.500 seconds and retains related operations. They return the visible process of parameters acting on form to the archive of the collaborative work.
“格物工作室 1.mp4” is a 4-minute, 55.458-second studio film. Sampled frames include the early Glow Studio wordmark, rocks in a landscape, curve models and illuminated surfaces. A close-up photograph brings these formal changes to the physical object, where the internally lit, undulating shell reveals variations in thickness and texture.
Source documents: capture-1(1).avi; yanshi 1.mp4; 格物工作室 1.mp4; 20120501-_MG_8772 1.jpg.
CLOSE READING / 2026 CURATORIAL INTERPRETATION
Gewu Studio / Twelve Water Lamps
When water is preserved, is it a shape or a way of changing?
The lamps make something that cannot stop into an object that can be held, lit and placed. The crucial change is not the application of a water motif to a lampshade. Flow enters curvature, openings and thickness; transmitted light lets a solid be read as movement again. The viewer’s relation changes too. Painted water is viewed, while a lamp enters the scale of use. It is seen and illuminates other things, helping to form an environment.
Studio texts emphasize rules, autonomous variation and the refusal to prescribe a final shape. The product booklet records selected forms, dimensions and material. These sources belong together: generation offers possibilities, while manufacture fixes a version. The work need not lose its product character to acquire artistic seriousness, nor should technology replace aesthetic attention. Rules, selection, light and use together preserve a temporary form of water.
The limits of this reading
The correspondence between algorithm files and original objects requires item-by-item verification. A 2026 digital generator should not be called a reconstruction of the 2012 algorithm.
Sources for this reading
Based on the public work page, the 2012 graduation product booklet and Gewu Studio texts. Unsigned studio documents are not attributed as personal statements by He Fa.
Work record
Gewu Studio / Twelve Water Lamps, 2012–2013. Co-creation, 3D printing and product design. He Fa’s role: He Fa: photography, conceptual development, form exploration and artistic direction; collaborative studio practice.
- Work / series
- Gewu Studio / Twelve Water Lamps
- Date
- 2012–2013
- Medium
- Co-creation, 3D printing and product design
- He Fa’s role
- He Fa: photography, conceptual development, form exploration and artistic direction; collaborative studio practice
- Catalogue section
- Selected works
Cite this record: Gewu Studio / Twelve Water Lamps · 2012–2013 · He Fa: photography, conceptual development, form exploration and artistic direction; collaborative studio practice · https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/twelve-water-lamps
BEYOND THE PAGE
Independent sites & related projects
Other ways to watch and read through this work.
Photograph by He Fa · Dongting Fengxi · 2012
Photography, objects and space
XIN GEWU
A continuation of He Fa’s photography and thinking through making, with objects, light and space.
gewu.p4theater.cn · Chinese interactive site; bilingual introduction here
TAKE A PATH ACROSS
Other paths from this work.
Language in transit
Images continue into life
Gewu Studio / Twelve Water LampsPaper Screening
Lisa’s Paper Screening brings drawing into reciprocal accounts; Gewu’s lamps turn research on water paintings toward luminous objects. Images acquire new uses in both, while participant making and studio production retain their different authors.
Continue from this work ↗Read the source materials
- Period documentBringing paper onto the stage ↗
The November 2020 project text and 26 November report record Lisa-led drawing, presenting drawings and participants’ responses, with individual authorship retained.
- Period documentWork and collaboration ↗
The work and collaboration record documents Twelve Water Lamps as a collaborative studio practice, identifies Ma Yuan’s water paintings as a reference, and records He Fa’s photography, conceptual development and artistic direction.
- Period documentBringing paper onto the stage ↗
Body and presence
What else can a familiar use become
Gewu Studio / Twelve Water LampsHow to Eat a Banana?
The How to Eat a Banana? invitation questions a familiar action; the lamps combine illumination with looking at water forms. Both open artistic possibilities through everyday use, but a workshop invitation is not a verified account of what happened.
Continue from this work ↗Read the source materials
- Period documentThe voice of the invitation · 2021 ↗
The original call of 24 March 2021 invites people to experience how to eat a banana together; it supplies neither complete exercises nor post-event results.
- Period documentConcept and product catalogues for the 2012 graduation exhibition ↗
The 2012 graduation Product Catalogue records the lamps, white 3D-printed nylon and a 220V/5W source; it grounds the object and luminous structure, not ambient illumination.
- Period documentThe voice of the invitation · 2021 ↗
Language in transit
When the water lamps become photographs again
Gewu Studio / Twelve Water LampsWu
Twelve Water Lamps turns the study of water paintings into surfaces that can be lit. Some images titled Wu photograph the lamps, returning them to a plane. Media move in both directions here, while using a lamp and viewing its photograph remain different experiences.
Continue from this work ↗Read the source materials
- Period documentConcept and product catalogues for the 2012 graduation exhibition ↗
The 2012 graduation Product Catalogue records the lamps, white 3D-printed nylon and a 220V/5W source; it grounds the object and luminous structure, not ambient illumination.
- Period documentThe lamps as photographic subjects ↗
Pages 23–25 of the 2015 preparation PPT title lamp photographs Wu, dated 2014, inkjet print, 120×120 cm; photographs and objects are catalogued separately.
- Period documentConcept and product catalogues for the 2012 graduation exhibition ↗
Spaces transformed
A luminous plane and a luminous surface
Gewu Studio / Twelve Water LampsShanshui
Shanshui lights a planar collage through a lightbox; Twelve Water Lamps places water patterns in translucent three-dimensional surfaces. Light shapes visibility in both, while viewing encounters the organization of a photographic plane or the folds, thickness and openings of an object.
Continue from this work ↗Read the source materials
- Period documentNavigate on screen; approach the physical work. ↗
The CAFA Art Museum collection record specifies C-print lightbox transparency and lightbox, grounding a backlit planar medium.
- Period documentConcept and product catalogues for the 2012 graduation exhibition ↗
The 2012 graduation Product Catalogue records the lamps, white 3D-printed nylon and a 220V/5W source; it grounds the object and luminous structure, not ambient illumination.
- Period documentNavigate on screen; approach the physical work. ↗
2026-10-04 / ARCHIVAL ADDITION
Source materials, process and versions
A dimensioned structural drawing is read alongside lamp-label texts. Drawings describe a proposed construction and labels retain the original language about water and form; neither is mistaken for proof of an installed exhibition.
FROM HERE, ELSEWHERE
Passages between works
- Who decides
Rules can generate many forms, but production must fix one of their possible moments.
- Meaning on the way
Painted water enters generative rules and luminous objects: the subject persists while viewing and use change.
- Making and keeping
The lamps from Gewu Studio’s collaborative practice move from parametric surfaces to printable, assembled objects. The portfolio records thickening, surface repair, printing and further adjustment; installation instructions connect the shade, ring and wick holder.
Related records in the archive
- Shanshui ↗2012
- P4 Theater ↗2015–present
- XIN GEWU ↗2026–present