The concrete artwork “Stubborn Mind” draws on the defining fact of concrete—once cured, it is permanently set—to hold two opposing meanings of a “stubborn mind”: one, the rigid kind that blindly follows trends and surrenders independent thought; the other, a conscious, unbending sort that holds fast to inner convictions rather than compromise for worldly gain. This subsequent installation retains the brain as its core visual motif and re-reads it through reclaimed color-coated steel cladding panels (profiled scrap sheets) salvaged from demolition sites and decommissioned factories. Titled “Open Mind,” it forms a deliberate dialectic with its predecessor: constraint vs. expansion, closure vs. release.

All primary materials are discarded color-coated steel sheets we manually sorted, their natural rust patinas, torn edges, pitted surfaces and organic bends kept intact—no polishing, no repainting. Concrete, once cast, cannot be reshaped; it reads here as a static emblem of inward confinement. The recovered steel, by contrast, can be cut, bent and—after the pop-up closes—dismantled and returned to the material loop, carrying the piece’s “infinite reformation” literally. That full-cycle logic runs straight through BENTU’s decade-long sustainable practice. The rusted steel cabinet becomes a metaphor for the mental cage fashioned by consumerism and fragmented feeds; hundreds of brain-form sculptures burst outward through its panel seams and fissures, their winding sulci sprawling free. The heavy, weathered shell and the outstretched cerebral forms stage the core claim: break the shackle, widen the boundary.

Staged as a travelling pop-up, the work commits to short-term presence, clean disassembly and material recovery. It does more than perform a recycling gesture—it mirrors a modern cognitive trap. Pop-up spaces draw the check-in crowd; many stay only long enough to shoot a frame, unwilling to slow down. That very behavior mirrors the “rigid mind” the earlier work criticises: people mouth praises for creativity while sinking deeper into an information comfort zone and closing off. The fleeting show vs. the lingering question is the point. Even after it is gone, the interrogation remains—for whoever actually stops.

Concrete and steel build the city; here they become metaphors: Stubborn Mind = set, inward; Open Mind = cut, bent, circulating, outward. True stubbornness isn’t refusing all change—it’s holding the line on what matters when everything else speeds up. Real “open-mindedness” isn’t novelty for novelty’s sake; it’s independent judgement with the guts to step off the herd path.

The mottled, rust-streaked steel cabinet stands in the temporary exhibition space; brain-forms sprawl from its seams. The rust reads like growth rings of the city’s industrial iterations, while the intertwining sulci materialise free thought. The piece tells the passerby, plainly: human thinking is built to reinvent and expand. That refusal to betray one’s center is the only ground from which real “open-mindedness” grows. In fast-shifting tides, only the steady inner line earns you genuinely open horizons.

Project Director: Xu Gang

This pop-up installation Open Mind, built from reclaimed construction-site steel cladding scrap with bursting brain-form sculptures, extends the philosophical discourse initiated by its concrete predecessor Stubborn Mind.