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. Vinu VV’s Ochhakal, or Reverberations, depicts the cruel treatments meted out to Dalits. 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 …