New York’s High Line has tapped Tuan Andrew Nguyen for its next plinth commission, slated to debut in April 2026. His proposed work, The Light That Shines Through the Universe, is an over-eight-meter-tall sculpture that reimagines one of the two monumental Bamiyan Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

Carved into sandstone cliffs above central Afghanistan’s historic Bamiyan Valley around the 6th century CE, the two ancient Buddhas once stood overlooking a key nexus of the Silk Road, bearing witness to centuries of exchange between civilizations. Their hands were destroyed long before modern times during earlier phases of iconoclasm, but in March 2001 the Taliban demolished the figures entirely in a brazen act of cultural destruction. Today, only the empty niches remain, preserved as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Nyuyen’s work does not aim to merely replicate the original Buddha but rather “echo” the form of the larger figure, known locally as Salsal—an ancient term meaning “the light shines through the universe,” from which the project takes its name. In this context, the destroyed statues are invoked less as lost monuments than symbols of life, healing, and peace.

A central element of Nguyen’s sculpture is the re-envisioning of the Buddha’s missing hands. Cast from melted brass artillery shells smuggled out of Bamiyan itself, these gleaming appendages form the mudras (ritual gestures) for “fearlessness” and “compassion.” Nguyen’s signature use of recycled munitions is particularly resonant here, the hands standing in as prosthetics that nod both to the violence of warfare and the Buddhas’ destruction by anti-aircraft guns, rockets, and explosives.

In a press release, Cecilia Alemani, director and chief curator of High Line Art, described Nguyen’s commission as “a powerful and poetic counterpoint to [the] extremism and iconoclasm we continue to witness globally.”

The High Line is a 2.3-kilometer-long elevated public park, built on a historic, abandoned freight rail line on Manhattan's West Side. Launched in 2019, the High Line Plinth program seeks to further cultivate community and connectivity by blending art with the urban fabric. The sculpture, to be located over the intersection of 10th Avenue and 30th Street, will be on view for 18 months.

Iain Cocks is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.