Since childhood, it has been the deepest emotions and the fragile persistence of memory that have driven photo-artist and writer K.R. Sunil. At the heart of Chavittu Nadakam: The Storytellers of the Seashore, his photo-series now on display at the Photo Brussels Festival—a major global celebration of contemporary photography—lies that same fascination: to capture the extraordinary colours of ordinary lives, remembered, performed and preserved against time.
Chavittu nadakam is a vibrant classical folk-art form that emerged within the Latin Catholic coastal communities during Portuguese colonial rule. Today it survives largely through the dalit and fishing communities, many of whom are descendants of those converted to Christianity by colonial-era missionaries. Performers appear in glittering costumes resembling European royal robes, and the narratives often recount legends of the Roman empire’s Christian warrior-kings.
More than a decade ago, Sunil watched a riveting performance by a troupe from Chellanam, a coastal village near Kochi, where the form still retains its early 16th century structure. The performers were fisherfolk and daily-wage labourers. The encounter stayed with him. He began visiting their village repeatedly to watch their rehearsals. Soon he was invited into their homes where he noticed a haunting dissonance: onstage they were kings and courtiers, but off it, they lived in ramshackle, flood-prone homes.
He realised that the real story behind the “kings and nobles” was one of pain, neglect and constant stress. “So, instead of palace backdrops, I photographed them in front their own homes,” Sunil says. The images—royal figures standing before waterlogged walls and crumbling doorways—became Chavittu Nadakam: The Storytellers of the Seashore, a series where performance, memory and survival occupy the same frame.
Sunil, who calls himself an introvert, says it would not have been easy for him to reach out to people and understand their stories if not for photography and art. Born into a communist family in the town of Kodungallur, from a young age he was involved in painting political graffiti and other artwork for the party. “I was taken to places a child my age would never normally go, painting and writing on walls day and night. Through this I encountered ordinary people’s lives very early, and that helped me a lot,” he says.
In college, portraiture became his favourite subject across drawing, sculpture and photography. An encounter with local photo-artist Krishnakumar—a close confidant of the legendary filmmaker G. Aravindan—introduced Sunil to international photography books. “Soon I bought a camera and took up photography,” he says. “The camera allowed me to approach people intimately. They began sharing their life stories. I realised what excited me was not the beauty of images, but human faces and untold stories.”
Sunil takes each photo series seriously. Most of his projects take years to complete as he believes a bond with his subjects is essential. At times, that intimacy has also brought painful experiences. His series Vanishing Life-Worlds was a result of more than three years of close engagement with people in the harbour town of Ponnani. While researching it, he befriended Azeez, a pickpocket who shared many stories with him. They parted with the promise to meet again, but when Sunil returned to Ponnani, Azeez had been murdered.
One of his most acclaimed series, Manchukkar: The Seafarers of Malabar, presents portraits of dhow workers from the Malabar coast, where a distinctive tradition of building wind-dependent urus, or dhows, once thrived. “From shipwrecks and uncertain voyages to life-altering journeys, their stories are nothing short of extraordinary,” Sunil says.
Many dhow labourers began as adolescent boys often taken aboard as cooks. They endured harsh conditions and, at times, cruelty from senior crew members. In his research, Sunil met men who had spent up to 45 years at sea. Cyclonic winds frequently wrecked the vessels and death was a constant presence. He encountered survivors who had drifted for days on broken hulls before being rescued.
One story that stayed with him was narrated by a former sailor, Usman. During a voyage to Mumbai with his three brothers, their boat was caught in a violent storm. As the crew struggled to save the cargo, lightning struck the vessel, killing the youngest brother. The remaining brothers were forced to remain at sea for days with the body, unable to bring it ashore because of maritime regulations.
Sunil’s latest series, Thambu: Tales from the Great Indian Circus, is a similar excavation of fading memories—this time those of Indian circus performers from Thalassery, long regarded as the cradle of the country’s circus tradition.
Beyond his photo-series, Sunil has also published books and co-written the script for the Malayalam blockbuster Thudarum (2025). Yet the medium seems almost incidental. Whether through a camera, a page or a screenplay, he keeps returning to the same terrain: lives lived far from the spotlight. His work gathers voices that history rarely archives—dock workers, folk artistes, sailors, wanderers—and holds them still for a moment before they disappear into the anonymous flow of time.