Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc. - Pray to the Great Buddha

Natural disasters, wars, famines, pandemics. Throughout Japan’s long history, its people have constructed many great Buddha statues to pray for the strength to overcome hardships. In 2020, without the ability to construct a new Buddha statue, the rock band amazarashi, meaning the “rain of daily suffering,” put together a music project with the objective of creating a place where people could pray and gain the strength to endure the COVID-19 pandemic.

By using the base of a Buddha statue as the stage of an online concert, we created a place of prayer that people from around the world could gather at. We used projection mapping to cast images of heavy weather, wars, pandemics, and other calamities that humankind has encountered onto the Buddha statue. The visual effect of the Buddha embodying human suffering created a new symbol of prayer.

To create an online concert that invited viewers to join in prayer instead of being passive observers, we collected people’s thoughts and prayers regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, and placed them before the Buddha statue for purification. We aimed to create a strong engagement by collecting people’s prayers online and assembling them in a physical environment. Through the use of technology, the interactive online concert was elevated to a religious ceremony, giving people the strength to hold on.