Artistic lead of P4 Theater, artist and filmmaker
He Fa is the artistic lead of P4 Theater, an artist and a filmmaker. His work at P4 connects rehearsal, live encounters, moving image and writing.
He Fa leads P4 Theater’s ongoing practice across project initiation, rehearsal, collective creation, filmmaking and archives. P4U and 3P observation, the role-based situations of Purples, and the passage from The Last Rehearsal to Shoot Self with You offer concrete routes into this work. Each project retains the credits of its own initiators and collaborators.
He Fa leads P4’s continuing work across projects, rehearsal, moving image and writing. Proposals bring people into shared work; documentation and response allow that process to remain available to others. His responsibilities can be followed through each project’s initiation, directing, production and observation credits.
After P4 left its original venue, He Fa continued its work across disused factories, offices, boxing gyms, bookshops, private homes and digital spaces. Performances, workshops, filming, writing and shared life connect through this continuing organisation.
The changing media return to a continuing question: how do cameras, rooms, rules and other people change who can see, speak, act, refuse or stop? Photography becomes an encounter, theatre a way of arranging relations, film a return to the event, and archives a way for the work to continue.
Each P4 project retains its own creators and collaborators. Leading this ongoing practice connects their work while preserving the distinct credits of initiators, directors, performers and documentarians.
Developed with Zhang Shaohua; theory, structure, framework and interpretation
First practised in 2019 and publicly introduced in 2020. Photographing and viewing alternate; a photograph becomes material for the next encounter, and participants decide whether their photographs are made public.
Co-curated with Zhang Aoshuang; performance and GIF-version credits remain distinct
He Fa and Zhang Aoshuang co-curated P4’s first public performance in 2016. The performance and its GIF version retain their own project records and collaborators’ credits.
Co-initiator of the 3P Group
The 2020 account names Huang Lucang, Zhang Shaohua and He Fa as the 3P Group’s co-initiators. P4U connects creative work with observation and documentation, allowing members to move between the two groups.
P4 organisation and 3P documentation
Recruitment and rehearsals took place in 2020, followed by a public performance at P4 at 19:30 on 2 January 2021. He Fa helped organise the project and documented its rehearsals, live work and post-performance discussion through 3P.
Producer
Eight creators and fifteen audience members shared a small office for the public performance at 19:30 on 1 January 2022. Distance, obstruction and the conditions of entering and leaving became part of the viewing experience.
Co-initiator in 2021
Shen Bolun, He Fa and Shao Yifan co-initiated Purples in 2021. Roles, situations and decisions shape this collaborative practice; individual events such as Duel Club retain their own records.
Producer for the 26 August 2023 performance
The introduction published on 25 August 2023 names He Fa as its behind-the-scenes producer. The performance connects with the film, while the live production’s creative, performing and musical roles remain separately credited.
Director, initiator, producer and editor; direction and screenplay collectively created by the crew
The 2023–2024 film grew from rehearsals, shared life and a public performance. He Fa’s directing role stands alongside the crew’s collective creation. The project record and end credits retain the complete names and roles. The approximately 156-minute film brings together recruitment, rehearsal, handheld filming and The Last Rehearsal. He Fa shaped the film’s structure, while performance, live sound, parts of the text and conflicts emerged through the participants’ shared work.
A photograph is not only the result of pressing a shutter. Distance, trust, hesitation, staging, and the right to refuse already shape the image.
A room, route, invitation, rule, or camera can decide who sees, who acts, and who must respond. P4 makes those positions visible and changeable.
Once someone speaks toward the lens, moves because it is present, or takes it from another person, filming becomes an action within the event.
In Shoot Self with You, a self cannot appear alone. The word “you” may move among performer, camera operator, partner, audience, and future viewer.
To see another person does not grant ownership of their meaning. Non-sovereign spectatorship asks the viewer to remain close without turning partial understanding into a final verdict.
AGT describes action as something produced among actors, positions, rules, spaces, and situations—not as the expression of one sovereign author.
A participatory work remains open only when people can pause, refuse, withdraw, and decide whether an image or story may continue beyond the encounter.
Film, sound, writing, and searchable archives let an event return in different forms. Continuation matters more than pretending the archive can contain a person completely.
Read how proposals enter a group and how the 3P Group documents and responds to the process. Follow the project records to see how those relationships change.
He Fa’s methodological writing follows action, position and relations through P4’s practice. The AGT introduction and Relational Image-Making offer research routes; historical documents retain their original dates and credits.
Follow the passage from Mountain Beyond Mountains to the organisation of live encounters.
Read how repeated encounters and participants’ writing change the meaning of a portrait.
Follow the changing positions of camera operator, participant and viewer from Shixiang to Shoot Self with You.
Read how a live performance becomes material for a film through recording and editing.
He Fa’s photography, installations, moving-image works, education and exhibitions are collected on his artist website. This page follows his roles within P4 projects and collaborative work.
Around 2015, He Fa and Zhang Shaohua co-initiated P4. Zhang Aoshuang joined its early conception and co-curated the first public performance with He Fa. The organisation’s history and dated accounts document these relationships, its changing spaces and later projects.
For performances, screenings, research, collaborations and participation, continue through P4’s public contact page. Consult each project’s current announcement for its arrangements.
He Fa is P4’s artistic lead and long-term organiser, working across projects, rehearsals, moving image and writing. Individual credits identify his specific roles.
Each project keeps its own initiators, directors and participants. Shoot Self with You credits both He Fa’s directing role and the crew’s collective creation.
The complete works, biography and chronology are on his artist website, hefa.p4theater.cn.
Use P4’s contact page for public contact details and routes into screenings, performances, research or participation.
