Much has been said about the Gen Z demographic – that they are stuck in a cycle of digital overconsumption and overstimulation – yet, in Chennai’s social landscape, a countercurrent is emerging. Young people are gathering in zine-making clubs, carving linocut prints, loading film into old cameras, and listening to vinyl records, and making a slow but deliberate return to the city’s tactile spaces.
making a zine
At Kannadi Cupboard in Tambaram, siblings Prasanna Venkatesh and Keerthan Alagean make room for all things luxury. The yellow-painted studio resists the digital as much as possible; It smells only of paper, glue and discussions. Every fortnight, they gather with a small community to create photobooks, zines and collages – and sometimes even host a mango potluck if the weather permits. There is an open appeal for anyone to leave some personal belongings like museum artefacts inside a glass case in the Kannadi Cupboard.
“There’s so much that already exists in digital format,” says Prasanna, 23. “We wanted to create something that was tactile and couldn’t be replicated online. Holding a print or looking at it with the naked eye, it’s a kind of intimacy that digital doesn’t give us. Plus, with AI, everything and everyone is trying to look the same,” he adds.
Working with analog media is also not easy, because you don’t always end up where you planned. He added, “Drawing a line on a wooden plank is not going to be straight, and our generation has no problem with that imperfection. That’s exactly what analog means.”
A zine-making workshop in Tambaram by Prasanna Venkatesh and Keerthan Alagean
linocut printing
If zine-making is having a renaissance, linocut printmaking is taking off. It’s slow, deliberate – a three-hour ritual of carving, rolling, inking and pressing. Aparna, an artist who runs linocut printing workshops alongside Padmashree, says analog is, in a way, a liberation from the readymade matrices they have been using in work for a long time.
Aparna says, “I don’t personally see it as a resistance to digital culture, but as a response to the need to overcome the boredom of capital-intensive production of arts and crafts. Doing manual art is a joy. The dullness of it can be a form of resistance against the pressures of being part of the modern workforce.”
For Padmashree, a fellow artist who grew up in Sivakasi, terms like litho, press and fine art were already familiar. “The labor that the medium requires is both rewarding and challenging. The repetition in carving each stroke, rolling out the ink, pressing somehow attracts me. My mind is focused, and at the same time, in flow. Involving the body is also something I enjoy about printing, and about other things I do, like gardening and macramé,” she adds.
A linocut printing workshop by artists Padma Shri and Aparna
film photography
Aditya, a 26-year-old gallery archivist and film photographer, explains how analog photography has become popular among the younger generation. “With digital, you click and there you have it. With film, it’s on the negative – you enlarge, scan, check if the image is in place, and then comes the printing. Older techniques like gelatin silver prints and cyanotypes are also making a comeback. It’s expensive, but people are increasingly attracted to it, taking film cameras on holidays, etc.”
Gallery archivist and film photographer Aditya in one of his workshops
Many things today unfold in quick, fleeting moments. Yet Gen
published – October 14, 2025 05:46 PM IST