V&A Museum planning £4 million revamp of its South Asia galleries

The V&A Museum has announced plans for a £4 million revamp of its South Asia Gallery that could see an important Indian ceiling that’s been in storage for 70 years put on display again.

Panel from the Kochi ceiling depicting Shiva. (c) V&A Museum

The Kochi Ceiling is a painted and carved 19th-century wooden temple ceiling from South India that was on display in the Eastern Galleries until they were demolished in 1955. Since then, the ceiling has been in storage, unseen by anyone other than researchers.

Now, it could go on display again and will hang above the revamped gallery, creating the ceiling effect it originally had. You can see how it used to look in a photo at the end of this gallery of pictures of the parts.

Originally it had 45 panels, but only 12 now survive, so a contemporary artist or designer will be commissioned to create a series of new panels to fill gaps in the original ceiling, bringing together historic and contemporary art into a single object.

The V&A says that it has secured an initial £250,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and is preparing to bid for additional funding towards the full £4 million of the restoration project.

Sunject to funding, the restored gallery will reopen in Spring 2028.

Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A said: “We’re delighted to have the support of The National Lottery Heritage Fund to transform our historic South Asia gallery, which houses one of the oldest collections at the V&A. The collection is one of the most significant of its kind in the Western world and we’re enormously grateful for this grant that will help create a world-leading gallery of South Asian art and design and engage with a new generation of British, global and diasporic communities.”

Many of the objects in the galleries come from the India Museum, a legacy of the East India Company, and the revamped galleries will also explore how the objects came into its collection.