Held in storage at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is a remarkable piece of South Indian architectural heritage: a 19th-century coffered wooden temple ceiling from Cochin. Spanning six metres by 1.7 metres, its surviving teak panels feature Hindu deities, each carved in a distinctive style.

Of the original 45 panels, 25 are missing, leaving large gaps in a structure that has remained out of public view for more than seven decades.

Now, the museum is turning to Malayali artist-and-designer duo Devi Seetharam and Ananth Ramaswamy to reimagine the missing sections. When the V&A’s transformed South Asia Gallery opens in spring 2028, the ceiling will take centre stage, with 25 contemporary panels occupying the spaces left by the lost originals.

"The ceiling was shipped from Cochin aboard the Banian in 1882. Architect and museum curator Sir Caspar Purdon Clarke purchased it during his expedition to India," Shannon Nash, Communications Manager at the V&A, told Onmanorama in an emailed response. Museum records from the period state that the ceilings came from a temple in Cochin that was demolished in 1874.

The ceiling was last displayed in 1955 and has remained in storage ever since. It is now being conserved and reconstructed ahead of its return to public view. During the process, the museum found that several panels were missing and issued an open call inviting artists and designers to propose ways of reinterpreting the ceiling. Seetharam and Ramaswamy submitted a joint proposal and were selected after several rounds of evaluation.

“Having roots in Kerala gave us a basic, intuitive understanding of the artefact,” says Seetharam. Her work Brothers, Fathers and Uncles, presented at the fifth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, explored patriarchy and men’s dominance of public spaces through figures dressed in the traditional Kerala mundu.

“Reading the ceiling means something to us. There is an immediate recognition of the visual language, the way Kerala woodwork feels, the articulation of the deities on the surviving 20 panels. But our reinterpretation deliberately avoids representing those subjects directly. Instead, we are trying to create something that complements the ceiling without taking away from it in any way. That is something we are very sensitive about.”

Ramaswamy, founder of design studio Arall and creative director of his family’s Bengaluru-based furniture business, Chester’s, says the project is also about understanding how an object changes meaning when it moves between places and contexts.

“It’s all about contextualisation. What does it mean that a ceiling from an Indian temple is now in a UK museum? Similarly, I am from Bengaluru, but I work in London. I’m constantly thinking about how we belong and where things belong,” Ramaswamy told Onmanorama.

“The ceiling itself is a coffered one with 45 panels, each of which would have depicted a deity. What has been particularly interesting is that they are carved in quite idiosyncratic ways. Each of the carvers involved in making the original ceiling had a unique mark and a unique way of carving. It appears to have been a group of different craftspeople rather than one person carving the entire ceiling,” says Ramaswamy.

Rather than recreating the missing deities, the 25 new panels will draw on the lotus, a recurring motif in Kerala’s temple architecture. Characteristic of Kerala’s architectural traditions, the coffered ceiling comprises a grid of square central panels framed by richly decorated beams. The longitudinal beams are carved with elephant corbel heads, while the transverse joists feature ornate lotus medallions.

“When you study the remaining panels, every deity sits within a rich landscape. There is ornamentation, jewellery, water, animals and floral garlands,” says Ramaswamy. “The lotus doesn't feel incongruous or unfamiliar. It sits quite sympathetically alongside the existing panels,” he says.

From canvas to carved wood
For Seetharam, the project is also a significant departure from her established practice. Her work primarily involves painting and reductive mark-making, through which she builds texture, grain and form by paring back layers on canvas. The V&A commission marks her first experience working in carved wood.

“It is daunting, but also incredibly exciting. It is a really nice departure, but also a lovely study and exploration for both of us,” she says.

The collaboration allows her conceptual approach to intersect with Ramaswamy’s architectural discipline.

“As an architect, you approach projects with a very strong conceptual anchor, then work it through various stages of detailing, materiality and process to get to the end product,” says Ramaswamy.

“I bring that architectural discipline into the process and Devi’s artistic discipline complements it amazingly.”

Creating 25 new wooden panels for a museum ceiling also presents a demanding material challenge. The new timber must complement the grain, colour and visual character of the historic polychromed teak while meeting strict conservation and environmental requirements.

“We have been given very strict parameters to work within, including what materials we can and cannot use, because these panels are going to be up on the ceiling for many years to come. The materials have to be seasoned and meet all the museum's conditions. An international team of conservators is handling the cleaning and preservation of the original 19th-century panels. Our role is the contemporary artistic infill that converses with them,” explains Ramaswamy.

Addressing a complicated history
The passage of a Kerala artefact into a British museum also raises questions about colonial history, displacement and provenance.

“It was the very first thought that came to both of us,” says Seetharam. “How do we approach this project, and what are we trying to articulate? Our approach was to acknowledge the displacement that occurred—to hint at what has been lost and gained in transit.”

The V&A is continuing to research the ceiling’s provenance, including how it entered the museum’s collection. “There are very big and difficult questions around these projects and these artefacts. I think it's about being as transparent and aware of that as possible,” says Ramaswamy.

For Ramaswamy, who has lived in the UK for 18 years, the commission also reflects his changing relationship with the country.

“For many years, I felt like an outsider. Now I feel like an insider. It has been a difficult and transformational process. I felt very connected when I visited museums here and saw the objects. But the way in which they were written about or spoken about sometimes distressed me.”

“Now, having the two of us from the actual place where this ceiling originated working on it, I hope visitors look up and feel immediately connected, comforted and acknowledged,” he says. “I want the original 19th-century ceiling to take precedence,” adds Seetharam. “I hope our new panels respect and complement it with subtlety, without being really overt.”

When the South Asia Gallery opens in spring 2028, visitors will see the surviving 19th-century panels alongside 25 newly created ones. The additions, the artists hope, will do more than fill the gaps. They want the new panels to sit quietly alongside the old, connecting a piece of Kerala’s past with the present.