A Chinwag with Ratbag

By Tui Lou Christie (she/they)

Cosmo Bones and Pepper Raccoon are local Wellington artists on a mission to create accessible, creator-driven events that benefits artists and makers in our community. Cosmo (@cosmob0nes, cosmobones.com), a.k.a Aimee, is a mostly full-time artist, creating artwork and apparel that they sell at various events around New Zealand on top of their regular part-time job. Pepper (@pepperraccoon, pepperraccoon.com) is a full-time artist, similarly selling artwork and merchandise around New Zealand as well as commercial illustration and design work. On top of lifelong passions for art, the two have a combined experience of over 10 years selling their artwork. So, it’s no surprise that this pair knows the struggle of finding inclusive events that promote artist’s work in ways that are accessible and community-driven. It’s also no surprise that they’ve decided to do something about it, with the creation of Ratbag Market (@ratbagmarket, ko-fi.com/ratbagmarket). Ratbag first ran last year with enormous success, and I got to have a virtual sit-down with these creative folks to chat all about running and event like this.

What was your inspiration to create Ratbag?

Wellington has a real problem with affordability, and that means a lot of creatives are leaving town or struggling to make ends meet. Ratbag was our way of creating another income opportunity for creatives, while also helping ourselves fill a market niche that we thought was missing in the city. We wanted something BUSY, energetic, and friendly, in contrast to local creative events centred around certain types of products, or sleepy suburb craft markets. Wellington is honestly too cool of a city to not support creative incomes, and we want to help do our bit to change that.

So cool! It seems like you have a really strong focus with this market. What or who are you trying to promote?

Our focus for each market is to present new and interesting local makers to the public. We’re especially enthusiastic about new makers who maybe haven’t tabled before. Getting people out from behind Instagram and into the real world so people can rave over their creations is honestly what makes us happy. We want to promote artists and creators who have original voices, rather than the same reused approaches to things, and celebrate folks who stand out in their chosen genre of making.

Who's your target audience? Who do you hope will come along to the market?

We’re honestly trying to be accessible and friendly to all sorts of people, but we really hope to attract an eclectic, vibrant crowd across a wide age range that understands how important it is to support creatives if we want Wellington to stay awesome. Our space is accessible, and we have a clear kaupapa around disallowing TERFs and SWERFs so that makers and attendees feel safe and welcome. We’d love to see more students, retailers, and curious people turn up, we cater to a wide range of affordability (stickers start around $5, etc)!

What can we expect from this year's markets? What does a 'Ratbag' event look like?

We’re running two markets this year, and the May 27 one is our first of the year, so we’re very excited. The last one was such a success; we didn’t want to change too much! However, we’ve snagged something we’ve wanted to add for ages, which is a live tattoo artist doing flash tattoos in the space for people! Ratbag events are supposed to be party-like without being overwhelming, so we have music playing, a bar serving drinks, and Sweet Release vegan cafe providing delicious food. It’s a vibe, it’s an experience, and we hope people stick around and socialise rather than just passing through.

That’s a lot of things to coordinate. How long does it take to plan an event like this?

Weeks, months, years, ahahaha. No, seriously, it’s a decent amount of work. We’ve been scheming for years, but we generally need at least three months in the run up to a market to sift through applications (takes hours), do a table layout (few more hours), and do all the social media, poster design, general hyping/promotion, etc. Fitting it in alongside our full-time work is tough, but we love doing it. We don’t pay ourselves or make any profit from the events themselves, we keep stall fees as low as we can and aim to just cover costs.

Why is it important that we support events like Ratbag?

Wellington is not an easy city to run events in. Venue spaces are either terrible or extremely expensive (or both!), and it can be a real struggle to afford to put things on. Cuba Street is losing many of its independent stores due to rising rents, and creatives are leaving the city. Without more people running events like Ratbag, taking risks on weird and wild ways for creatives to thrive, it’s going to be a bit of a bleak future for ol’ Te Whanganui-aTara in our opinion. We ask for community support through our ko-fi.com/ratbagmarket so we can afford to continue to exist, and if you’re keen on volunteering at the next one, email ratbagmarket@gmail.com. We love our volunteers!

Time for the official details! Where and when?

Ratbag Market is running on May 27, at Whisky and Wood from 1-7pm. Featuring Ratbag Tattoos (they’re seriously also called Ratbag, how cool is that?!), Sweet Release vegan cafe, Whisky + Wood running the bar, and so many amazing stallholders from ceramics to art to taxidermy! The space is accessible with a lift to bring people up to the first floor if needed, and we encourage anyone who needs assistance to ask one of our volunteers, they have been briefed and will assist!

Can’t wait! Anything else for our readers?

Many of our artists will not have Eftpos but will be able to facilitate bank transfers, otherwise you can bring along cash. If people are interested in selling their wares at future Ratbags, please follow us on IG, @ratbagmarket. We open stallholder applications a few months prior to each event, and selection is based on diversity of applicants and their product offerings, as well as originality and variety (we try to mix up each market with different stallholders each time!).