About

K.R. SUNIL

He is a visual artist based in Kochi, Kerala. He studied sculpture from the Government College of Fine Arts, Thrissur, and turned to photography that later shaped Sunil’s world of art. His works hinge mainly on everyday life of people, travel and transformation, entangled histories that cross-cultural travel brought in, creolized art forms, vanishing life-worlds, people and their environmental imaginations, climate change etc. Sunil often employs the method of ethnography in photography, which he thinks, is more effective for a microcosmic and nuanced understanding of the communities and their life-worlds he captures.

His critically acclaimed series Manchukkar – The Seafarers of Malabar featured – for the first time-the stories of the long-forgotten seafarers of the Malabar region, while Vanishing Life-Worlds explores the endangered life-worlds in the historic port town of Ponnani. Another series Chavittu Nadakam: Storytellers of the Seashore narrates the present of a community in encroachment-prone coastal region of Kochi that struggles for saving a creolized art form introduced by the Portuguese. Thambu – Tales from the Great Indian Circus is a similar account of disremembered stories of Indian circus artists from the town of Thalassery, the cradle of Indian circus.

Selected Exhibitions:

2026 ‘Chavittu Nadakam – Storytellers of the Seashore’, Modesti Perdriolle, Photo Brussels, Belgium.

2026 ‘Chavittu Nadakam – Storytellers of the Seashore’, Birla Academy, Kolkata, curated by Ina Puri

2025 ‘Thambu – Tales from the Great Indian Circus’, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, curated by Birgid Uccia

2025 ‘Home’ Global Water, Energy and Climate Change Congress by Ministry of Oil & Environment & UN Environment Programme, Bahrain

2025 ‘Chavittu Nadakam – Storytellers of the Seashore’ Fundação Oriente, Goa

2024 ‘Art of India Redux’ Assemblage, Nebraska (with focus on Chavittu Nadakam – The Storytellers of Seashore)

2023 ‘Chavittu Nadakam – Storytellers of the Seashore’ Contextual Cosmologies, Thiruvananthapuram, curated by Bose Krishnamachari

2022 ‘Chavittu Nadakam – Storytellers of the Seashore’ Sea A Boiling Vessel Exhibition, Kochi, curated by Riyas Komu

2021 ‘Manchukkar – The Seafarers of Malabar’ Clarinda Carnegie Art Museum, USA

2021 ‘Home’ Lokame Tharavadu, Alappuzha, curated by Bose Krishnamachari

2018 ‘Manchukkar – The Seafarers of Malabar’ URU Art Harbour, Kochi, curated by
Riyas Komu

2017 ‘Chronicle of a Disappearance’ RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, curated by Suzanne Davies & Helen Rayment

2017 ‘Mattancherry’ URU Art Harbour, Kochi, curated by Riyas Komu

2016 ‘Vanishing Life-Worlds’ Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, curated by Sudarshan Shetty

2016 ‘Chronicle of a Disappearance’ India Habitat Center, New Delhi, curated by Alka Pande

Selected Awards, Grants & Residencies:

2024 Kunstdepot Göschenen, Switzerland

2018 URU Art Harbour, Kochi, Travel & Research Grant

2016 India Habitat Center, New Delhi, Photosphere Award & Grant

Publication:

Manchukkar – The Seafarers of Malabar by Kunstdepot Göschenen, Switzerland

Velichappadum Pocketadikkarum by Mathrubhumi Books

Collections:

Clarinda Carnegie Art Museum, Clarinda, USA

Kunstdepot Göschenen, Switzerland