Public art is supposed to be the heartbeat of a city; a reflection of its history, its heroes, and its culture. But take a walk through the busy intersections of Chattogram today, and you will find that the city’s sculptures are telling a very different story. It is no longer a story of civic pride, but one of silent, steady decay.
Chattogram’s public artworks have become victims of neglect, vandalism, and the harsh realities of urban poverty. The most immediate and striking evidence of this decline is the visual assault on the monuments themselves. Structures that were designed to draw the eye with their architectural beauty have instead become concrete billboards.
Take a look at the tiered monuments and memorial pillars scattered across the city. They are suffocating under thick layers of cheap, peeling paper.
Tutors advertising their batches, political hopefuls smiling from glossy flyers, and businesses promoting their latest sales have completely plastered over the stonework. What was meant to be a proud focal point for the community is now just a chaotic, colourful mess of advertisements that no one bothers to clean.
Beyond the superficial damage of posters and graffiti, there is a much more destructive force at play. The sculptures are literally being dismantled piece by piece.
Opportunistic thieves, driven by desperation or simple greed, frequently target these unguarded installations under the cover of darkness.
The iron fences meant to protect the art are pried away and sold for scrap. The expensive lighting fixtures installed to illuminate the statues at night are routinely unscrewed and stolen, leaving the monuments shrouded in darkness.
Even worse, the statues themselves are being broken. A statue of a cricketer, proudly wearing the Bangladesh jersey, stands mutilated, missing the very bat it was sculpted to swing. These aren’t just acts of weather and time; they are deliberate acts of vandalism that treat public heritage as collateral damage.
Perhaps the most poignant symptom of the city’s struggling infrastructure is found at the base of these monuments. As the sun sets and the stolen spotlights fail to turn on, these public squares transition into makeshift bedrooms.
For the city’s homeless population, the wide, flat concrete bases of the sculptures offer a rare, dry place to rest. It is a stark and heartbreaking contrast: monuments built to symbolise the towering achievements of a nation, now serving as the only shelter for its most marginalised citizens.
The decline of Chattogram’s sculptures is a reflection of a broader breakdown in civic responsibility. When citizens plaster over history with advertisements, when thieves strip public squares of their iron and light, and when the base of a monument becomes the only home for the displaced, the city loses a piece of its identity.
