Over the last few years, there’s been a growing interest in slower ways of living, especially in response to how fast and extractive most systems have become. People are paying more attention to where things come from, who makes them, and how they’re produced. This shift shows up across food, craft, design, and even publishing. There’s also a stronger pull towards landscapes, local knowledge, and ways of working that are shaped by specific regions instead of being standardised. Independent platforms, small studios, and journals have started building around this, focusing on depth, long-term engagement, and collaboration with communities. In the Nilgiris, this kind of work takes shape through initiatives like Coonoor & Co.

Coonoor & Co is a studio, journal, and store founded by visual storyteller Ramya Reddy. It operates across storytelling, documentation, and making, bringing together written work, photography, and objects that emerge from the region. Connoor & Co is rooted in long-term engagement with the landscape and the communities around it, with its work shaped by time spent on the ground than quick production cycles. The practice moves between publishing and material work, connecting narratives with objects that carry the same context.

The journal is a central part of what they do. It functions as an independent publishing platform with themed issues that bring together writers, artists, and researchers. These pieces focus on ideas of home and memory, often tied to the Nilgiris and similar landscapes. The writing is supported by strong visual documentation, with photography playing a key role in how these stories are told, featuring specific people, places, and practices, building a slower, more detailed archive over time. 

Alongside publishing, Coonoor & Co also works closely with craft. One of its key areas is Toda embroidery, a practice carried forward by Toda women in the Nilgiris. The work here is collaborative, with the studio engaging directly with artisans over long periods. The pieces are developed through shared decision-making, with attention to material, technique, and the visual language of the craft. The store brings these objects together with other products shaped by the region, including home objects, textiles, and even fragrance projects developed in collaboration with other makers.

It also includes publications like Soul of the Nilgiris, a book by founder Ramya Reddy that documents the region’s ecology and communities through long-term fieldwork, writing, and photography, along with projects like Sentient Mountain, a fragrance that reflects the smell of post-rain landscapes — moss, fern, stone, and flowers that bloom after the monsoon. The practice extends into visual storytelling as well, with films and documentation around making processes, so the work moves between documenting, collaborating, and producing objects that come directly out of the Nilgiris.

Coonoor & Co aims to build relationships, spend time with processes, and allow things to take the time they need. The studio’s output reflects the same whether it’s a printed issue, a crafted object, or a collaborative project. Through their work, Coonoor & Co positions itself as both a documentation platform and a working practice, where storytelling and making are closely linked and shaped by the landscape they come from.

Follow them here.

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