Zines (short for magazines or fanzines) are handmade, self-published collections of writing, art, photography, and other media. They are created outside mainstream or traditional publishing systems. Rooted in DIY culture, zines have long been used to share perspectives that don’t often find space elsewhere.

They’ve flourished in countercultures, liberation movements, and communities on the margins because anyone with paper and a pen can make one. You don’t need permission or polish. Just a desire to explore, express, and connect.

For us, our community zine, Coming To Our Senses is a living artefact. It captures our shared ideas through messy, poetic, curious, and playful means - as much process as it is product. It gives fleeting form to fragments of thoughts, hunches, and feelings. As well as providing information and reflections on familiar and novel ideas. It’s something to be with, not just read or understood, but experienced and explored.

I was drawn to the zine format because it reflects so much of what matters in The Haven. I come from a background steeped in DIY and indie approaches to music, where expression doesn’t need to be sanitised, packaged, or tied up with a neat takeaway.

There’s something powerful about creative work that doesn’t tell you exactly what to think, but invites you to bring your own meaning to it. That’s what Coming To Our Senses is. It’s not designed to teach or perform. It’s a space for honest, collaborative creative curiosity.

Each issue begins in the unknown. We start with a Phrase Maze, then follow threads of resonance as they emerge. By the time we gather to experience the final zine, I often don’t know which parts will land — and that’s part of the magic. It’s a shared exploration, full of unexpected moments of insight and recognition.

This is what sensitivity means to me. Not just a trait to talk about, but a way of being. A way of noticing. A nudge to create.

Coming To Our Senses emerges from foundation of sensory sensitivity. It offers a space to notice and respond the world as it is, in its beauty, pain, and contradictory confusion.

It’s a gentle rebellion against productivity and perfectionism. A place to play and process, without rushing toward outcomes or objectives. Each issue is a quiet reminder that there are other ways to be alive together.