Artist to "re-create" laser versions of Buddhas destroyed by Taliban

LOS ANGELES — When the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan destroyed two 1,600-year-old Buddha statues carved into Bamiyan Valley's soaring cliffs, the world shook with shock at the demise of such huge archaeological treasures.

Now, artist Hiro Yamagata plans to commemorate the towering Buddhas by projecting multicolored laser images onto the cliff sides where the figures once stood.

"I'm doing a fine-art piece. That's my purpose — not for human rights, or for supporting religion or a political statement," said Yamagata, whose other laser works include a permanent display at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.

Against a canvas of desert darkness, 14 laser systems powered by solar panels and windmills will project 140 overlapping faceless "statues" sweeping four miles across Bamiyan's cliffs in neon shades of green, pink, orange, white and blue. Each image will continuously change color and pattern.

The project, which Yamagata estimates could cost up to $9 million, would stand in stark contrast to the austere, rural valley below, a land racked by poverty and violence that has little electricity of its own.

In March 2001, Taliban militants disregarded worldwide protests and used dynamite and artillery to blow up the original fifth-century statues, famed for their size and location along the ancient Silk Road linking Europe and Central Asia. The fundamentalist group considered the Buddhas idolatrous and anti-Muslim.

Afghan government officials first approached Yamagata, 58, in 2003 about the project and gave him conditional approval last year, pending a green light from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which has been a prominent presence in Bamiyan, evaluating ways to preserve murals in caves surrounding the Buddhas.

Bamiyan provincial Gov. Habiba Sarobi said she was aware of Yamagata's proposal, and hoped that UNESCO could prove the cliffs would not be damaged by the 80- to 100-watt laser beams, which would be permanently projected every Sunday night for four hours.

"If there is a way to do it so there is no environmental impact, we would support it, as it would boost tourism and the images would remind us of what [the cliffs] once looked like," Sarobi said.

Letters sent to Yamagata from physics and chemistry experts at the University of Antwerp and Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium said the beams would not affect the cliffs because of low power levels cast from a safe distance of between six and eight miles.

Shortly after his 2003 meeting with Afghan officials in Tokyo, Yamagata visited Bamiyan and was moved by its orphaned children, squalid living conditions and lack of electricity.

Of the roughly 140 4,000-kilowatt windmills he plans to ship into Afghanistan for the Bamiyan project, Yamagata said that 100 of them would provide power for surrounding villages. He also wants to hire local men to dig foundations for the windmills starting in March 2006. Completion of the project is set for June 2007.