A photographic way of thinking.
Beyond the image.
Fanhua is a multimedia artist based in Milan. His practice moves between photography, performance, installation, event art and participatory encounters.
Explore 8 projects
Photobook / Collaborative zines
Cooking, shared recipes and the knowledge that emerges around a table.
Eat Well begins with the limits of the photographic image: the heat of a hotpot or the aroma of tea cannot simply be seen; they must be experienced. Through the idea of yihui — a tacit understanding formed in a shared space — cooking becomes a way to build relationships within the city.
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Photography
A photographic meditation on knowledge, growing up and the distance that can accompany awareness.
Inspired by Daniel Keyes’ novel Flowers for Algernon, this series considers the paradox of intellectual growth: a heightened consciousness can also bring estrangement from the world.
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Participatory practice / Relational aesthetics
A temporary space for tea, conversation and reflection on cultural habits in Sardinia.
Teahouse uses the Chinese habit of drinking hot water as a starting point for an encounter between cultures. Tea, melon seeds and objects sourced from a Chinese supermarket in Cagliari are brought into a shared setting in Sardinia.
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Photography
Everyday photographs tracing identity as a continuous movement between places, memories and cultures.
Initiated in late 2022, Realm of Flow marks a return to photography after several years of experiments across other artistic media. The series accompanies a relocation to Milan and an ongoing inquiry into identity.
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Installation / Event art
Trees and the social expectations carried by the idea of becoming useful.
Become Useful examines how the idea of maturity becomes a standard for measuring human value. Against the history of forestry and industry in Northeast China, the term moves from a description of harvestable timber into a demand shaped by society and family.
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Performance photography / Conceptual art
An exhibition label becomes a way of declaring artistic possession of an existing world.
A customised metal exhibition label is placed in dialogue with public buildings, street objects and urban remnants. Usually a tool for identifying and legitimising an artwork, the label becomes an instrument of symbolic occupation.
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Performance photography / Event art / Installation
A movement from bodily intervention in a landscape to fragments of living lawn inside a gallery.
The project begins with autobiographical performance photographs beside a disused canal in Chengdu. The artist’s body enters a simulated lawn covered with green industrial netting, challenging the rules and meanings attached to public greenery.
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Event art / Performance art
Photographic paper records the passage of time through the traces of everyday life.
Four sheets of archival Hahnemühle photographic paper were hung above the bed in a rented room. The enclosed space, the paper and the artist’s daily life together became a kind of biological printer.
View projectFanhua
China, 1998 · Based in Milan
Working across images, objects and encounters.
Biography & exhibitionsCollections
A4 Art Museum, Chengdu
Golab Agency, Milan