The High Line in New York has selected Vietnamese artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen to create its next plinth commission, titled *The Light That Shines Through the Universe*, opening spring 2026. The 27-foot sandstone sculpture reimagines one of the Bamiyan Buddhas, destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, replacing the lost hands with melted brass artillery shells. The work is an "echo" meant to invoke memory of the lost cultural treasures.
This commission matters because it directly confronts iconoclasm and cultural erasure, using public art to memorialize a destroyed UNESCO World Heritage Site while connecting it to contemporary issues of war and persecution. Nguyen’s practice, which often addresses cultural memory and the legacies of colonialism, gains a major platform on the High Line Plinth, amplifying a message of resilience against extremism.