Heathfield works on contemporary art practices, particularly those involving live elements such as performance art, experimental theatre and dance.
His writing has focused on questions of time, memory[1] and the "ethics of the encounter between the spectator and the artwork".
[2] He is the author of a monograph on the Taiwanese-American artist Tehching Hsieh.
[7] He is currently Professor of Performance and Visual Culture at the University of Roehampton, London.
[8] Heathfield is the son of trade union leader Peter Heathfield (General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers 1984–92) and the feminist activist Betty Heathfield (co-founder of Women Against Pit Closures during the 1984–85 miners' strike).