Great Wall of Books project

The man who built the Great Wall of China, Qin Shi Huang, was “one of the most notorious and prolific book burners in history,” according to a post on the Book Patrol website. “During his reign from 221 BC – 210 BC, Qin Shi Huang outlawed Confucianism and ordered the burning of pretty much all the books that came before him including the classic works of the Hundred Schools of Thought.” For good measure, he often “buried alive” many of the scholars who wrote those books. Jorge Luis Borges was inspired to write about Huang (“The Wall and the Books”), and now, the arts organizaton WELL has launched the Great Wall of Books, a project that is part public sculpture, part interactive installation: “Literally a gigantic book, 5 metres tall and opening out to over 11 metres wide, it is a vessel that both generates and stores written, aural and visual stories” that is travelling the world.