Healing “MOUNTAIN”
Quietly standing in the open heart of a field and gazing across toward Junshan Island, Healing “MOUNTAIN” appears like a curved silhouette of a mountain gently resting on the land. This sculptural installation invites visitors to enter its sheltered core for solitude and contemplation, or to linger freely along its bright and open periphery—surrounded by the expanse of nature. Since ancient times, Junshan Island—an isolated landform located along the lush northern edge of Dongting Lake in Yueyang, Hunan—has been a recurring subject in Chinese classical poetry. Often likened to an ethereal retreat, it embodies a landscape of seclusion, melancholy, and transcendent beauty. Surrounded on all sides by water and shrouded year-round in mist and moisture, the island exudes a quiet otherworldliness. In the dry season, as lake waters recede and silted mudflats emerge, reeds stretch outward for kilometers, forming vast wetland zones. These expansive reed beds become habitats for migratory birds and aquatic species—and, increasingly, a site where contemporary art intersects with nature.
It was in this setting that artist Du Yang first arrived. Wandering through the reeds while morning fog still lingered, he encountered a landscape of tall, swaying stalks and shifting shafts of light—sun filtering softly through moving leaves, gradually illuminating the field. As the temperature rose and walking became more strenuous, the subtle transformation of the environment heightened his bodily awareness. What was he searching for? A fixed point? A place to pause and rest? It was through this embodied questioning that the concept of the installation began to emerge—an externalization of interior thought, given form through the symbolic geometry of a mountain. Healing “MOUNTAIN” thus became a place to gaze upon, to walk into, to dwell within—a spatial gesture that receives both the human body and the smallest of living beings. Air and light move freely through its seams. The structure functions as a contemplative vessel—a shelter that blends into the landscape, accommodates the ecological context, and offers a sense of inner calm and grounding.
As a spatial concept, the project draws upon the poetic lineage of traditional Chinese rooflines. From the primal act of shading came the design logic: a ridge-like, symmetrical geometry composed of two mirrored isosceles triangular planes, each with an edge length of 14 meters. The structure is anchored at both ends by diagonal columns and stabilized by a central cross-shaped support of five welded steel tubes embedded below ground. This three-point support system minimizes contact with the earth and gives the installation a striking sense of lightness and elevation. Reed, a material indigenous to the site, naturally became the ideal cladding. Harvested from the surrounding wetlands, the reeds were compressed into dense mats and applied to the steel frame. Their supple texture and natural irregularities softened the industrial rigidity of the underlying structure, allowing the installation to blur the boundary between the fabricated and the organic. The opening between the two curved surfaces at the top functions as a passage for wind, rain, light, and life—an elemental threshold that reaffirms the archetype of the mountain not only as a formal figure, but as a spiritual refuge. Here, the mountain becomes a place to enter, to look up, and to dwell in stillness—like a quiet spring at the heart of the wilderness.
