Imagine a coconut tree. Now, imagine rows upon rows of human figures, painstakingly carved from wood and pinned onto the tree with long, sharp nails. Their bland expressions normalise the impaling, and despite their large numbers, this isn’t a show of strength. Ochhakal or Reverberations, as this large sculpture is known, is as unsettling as it sounds. And it is just as artist Vinu VV intended it to be.
This work, exhibited at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2018, brings together sculptural figures, everyday objects, literary references and historical memories. It depicts the cruel treatment meted out to marginalised groups, particularly members of the Dalit community, to which the artist belongs. The figures are carved from the wood of the othalam, colloquially referred to as the suicide tree, owing to its poisonous fruit. The nails too have a significance. They depict an archaic ritual performed at the Chottanikkara Bhagavathy Temple in Ernakulam, Kerala, where women believed to be mentally unstable are forced to use their forehead to drive nails into the wood to appease the goddess. A video accompanying the installation features readings from Malayalam novels that challenge political correctness and moral policing in Kerala society.
Vinu VV’s work asks universal questions: What is the meaning of basic human dignity? Who is excluded from social structures? What does justice look like for the marginalised? It also questions the idea of democracy in the present moment. Born in 1974 to a working-class Dalit family in Tamil Nadu, Vinu grew up in a world where caste shaped everyday life. While he also painted, it was his sculptures that established his reputation for exposing uncomfortable social truths. At the 11th Shanghai Biennale in 2016, he presented Noon Rest, fixing dozens of sickles to a tree, mimicking the way Dalit labourers traditionally hung up their tools during a short midday respite. His own parents, both labourers, had done the same. The installation is a statement on the unequal value of rest — something most of us take for granted, yet is hard-earned and fleeting for the oppressed.
Art has always been my way of understanding society and the human condition. It is a way of thinking, of questioning, of imagining alternative futures. Several prominent Indian artists have drawn from their marginalised identity and lived experience in their works. Prabhakar Kamble uses everyday objects, from a sweeper’s broom to sanitation workers’ gloves, to examine the hierarchy and violence of the caste system. Valay Shende’s Transit, a life-size open-backed truck made from thousands of reflective stainless steel discs, highlights the precarious lives of migrant workers.
Like Kamble, Vinu’s practice draws from the Ambedkarite consciousness, which calls for dismantling caste structures. Above all, Ambedkar demanded the courage to examine society in all its ugly reality. Vinu does this, while also weaving in literature, folklore, lived experience and political history. His sculptures ask us to listen to what history has attempted to silence. They remind us that memory resists erasure, and that art, at its most profound, is not an escape from politics but a struggle for a more truthful human future.
Balagopalan Bethur is a Delhi-based artist from Kerala whose practice spans sculpture, painting, kinetic installations and collaborative public art projects.
From HT Brunch, July 11, 2026
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