This self-published zine is a punk-fueled homecoming

There’s a song Maha Eljak wrote with her dad. One line loops again and again: Ana raji’a al beit – I’m coming home.

That sense of return, to place, to feeling, to self, pulses through everything she creates. Born in Sudan and raised in the Netherlands, Maha exists in the in-between. She’s a Black, Muslim, “pirate gothic chic” hijabi who refuses to dilute her identity for public comfort.

“When I go full-Maha – goth fits, full grunge – I feel eyes on me,” she says. “People give me that look. Like, what are you? They’re confused. And I’m like, sure, we can talk — but also, look at you. Look at me.”

It’s a contrast that makes meeting her disarming. Eljak is soft-spoken, bubbly, and a little nervous when we speak. That tension, between aesthetic edge and quiet sweetness, between perception and reality, is exactly the point.

Though she first gained visibility on Holland’s Next Top Model in 2019, Maha never saw fashion as the final destination. She still models, carving space in an industry that hasn’t always made room for her hijab. “It takes me back to a shoot where they asked me to take it off,” she says. “I talk about it in my zine, how I had to sit there and stay quiet, because not everyone in the room would’ve appreciated the conversation. They wanted my Blackness, but not my Muslimness. And I’m like, if you want me, you have to take all of me.”

So she built her own space. Mahazine, her self-published zine now in its second edition, is part diary, part protest, part visual scream. The latest issue, Art is Resistance, draws on the rawness of punk zines: loud, messy, and full of intent.

Inside, neon pages clash with high-gloss portraits of Maha: lined in heavy eyeliner, perched on a motorcycle, eyes half-swallowed by fabric. Scribbled across the pages: “Stop stealing my face.” and “Baba, do you think we’ll ever be able to tell the story they tell about us?”

“Punk isn’t a genre, it’s a mindset,” she says. “It’s about refusing to conform, taking control of your own narrative. That’s why I love it. Punk is about creating space for people who aren’t usually given one.”

In Mahazine, Eljak braids personal memory with collective vision. She writes about visiting her mother’s village, standing beneath ancient baobab trees while her cousins climbed their branches with ease. Alongside those reflections are conversations with artists who, like her, are forging alternative creative futures across the diaspora: Palestinian streetwear designer Karmel Sabri of Baba’s Boys, Egyptian skater-creative Zineb Koutten, and Surinamese documentarians Charity Sumter and Shavero Ferrier.

“You’ll always have people who don’t like something, no matter what you do,” Sumter says. “If it makes you happy, then why shouldn’t you do it?”

Maha agrees. “I believe in the power of DIY culture, owning every part of your work without needing external validation,” she says. “That control keeps my work raw, honest, and unfiltered.”

But there’s urgency, too. “With everything happening in Sudan right now, documenting our stories feels more important than ever. Art preserves histories. It challenges erasure. It keeps conversations alive. So many people had no idea what was happening until I posted. My work is a continuation of that — to make sure our narratives are seen and heard.”

And maybe that’s what Ana raji’a al beit really means, not just coming home, but building one where there wasn’t space before.