The revolution will be printed

Youth zines form a movement reclaiming black narratives and cultural space

- Thembeka Heidi Sincuba

At a time when the public sector is faltering and the media landscape is in flux, the role of print culture in the South African story becomes crucial.

Zines — despite the slow and agonising death of the traditional publishing industry — are seeing a resurgence, driven by Gen Z’s desire for authentic representation in an age of alienating automation and algorithmic annihilation.

By 2050, one in four humans will be African, a demographic shift that illuminates the potential of forms of youth-driven creative expression, such as zines, to influence cultural and political landscapes.

The three collectives featured in this article — Afro Chronicles, Aimed Consciousness and Can I Tell You A Secret? — emerged from Dr Rangoato Hlasane’s Drawing and Contemporary Practice course at the Wits School of Arts last year.

Hlasane, born in Polokwane in 1981, is an artist, educator and co-founder of the Keleketla! Library, who earned his PhD with a thesis titled Kwaitoscape: Reading the Historiographie Narratives in the Visual Cultures of Black Youth.

Hlasane has been instrumental in reimagining independent publishing as a “de-colonial” tool, encouraging Wits students, for more than a decade now, to view it as a means of self-authorship.

Hlasane’s pedagogy draws from the Medu Art Ensemble, who amplified print as a tool for collective world-building. Founded in 1978 by South African exiles in Botswana, including figures such as Thami Mnyele, Medu used print to promote liberation during apartheid.

Despite a 1985 raid that killed Mnyele and destroyed their works, Medu’s impact endures and Hlasane’s latest cohort of student-led collectives are proof, using independent publishing to challenge the dominant culture and reclaim intellectual sovereignty.

How do you engage with the legacy of the Medu Art Ensemble?