The Transcript of the Emerald Rock Face (Bi-Yaen-Lu), a collection of 100 Koans with their respective commentaries, is considered to be one of the deepest philosophical and classical written texts of ZEN literature.

This project dares to attempt a visualisation of the Emerald Rock Face by means of the traditional hand-knotted Indian carpet.

In the East, traditional storytelling also translated into this craft. Visual abstraction was more cultivated by the West, with Leonardo da Vinci pointing at the effect sedimented or wet walls may have on the imagination.

Inspired by a long mundane wall in Bodh Gaya* (North India), reminiscent of a filmstrip with its concrete story being lost on the way, overwritten by time, the revelation of the hidden stories of a sequence of 12 carpets translating a great part of that wall depends on the imaginative engagement of the viewer.

Burkhard von Harder, 2024

* Bodh Gaya was known as Forest of Uruvela when Buddha found enlightenment 2500 years ago meditating under a bodhi tree.