Our July cover artist Moonbuns Collective talk inspirations and creative processes

Tell us a bit about yourselves…
Moonbuns is a queer art collective. Our core members are Nikki, Em, Ritsy, and Dan. The short answer is that we are family. We’ve known each other for fifteen years, and live together in a two-bed flat in the centre of Notts. So far, we sell high quality art prints, cards, and stickers, focused on reinvesting our profits and supporting our community. We founded Moonbuns in the winter of 2023 after a redundancy, and we decided to stop investing so much of our time on this planet into people and companies who didn’t actually care about us.

What was the inspiration behind the cover?
We are really excited to design the cover for Pride month. The cover was inspired by platonic and romantic love, and the support we have for each other. As we were designing this piece, we realised we couldn’t feel pride without mentioning Palestine. We spent the night exploring Queering The Map, a website creating a global digital archive of queer memory, reading posts made by queer Palestinians. It’s heartbreaking, and we wanted to include a mention to our queer siblings doing their best to survive. We’ll be selling prints of this cover, and will be donating the profits.

How does it compare with some other projects you’ve worked on?
This is our first time collaborating on an editorial piece. The scope of how many people we could reach as a result of designing the cover for Left Lion had us thinking much more seriously about our values and how we want to affect the world around us.

What was the biggest challenge that you faced in creating the piece?
Condensing our ideas into one image was definitely a challenge. Until quite late in the game, we had a few different designs in the works. Thankfully, working as a team means we can do a lot of work in a small amount of time, and we are all really proud of what we have come up with. Trying to find a gentle, but impactful, sign of respect to Palestine really played on our minds. The watermelon has been used since 1967, when Israel made public displays of the Palestinian flag a criminal offence in Gaza and the West Bank.

Tell us about some projects you’ve worked on in the past…
This summer, we’ve been running zine making workshops and a mural for Lincoln Museum, open to view from July - October, focusing on celebrating the history of games. We adore gaming, from Elden Ring to Dominion to DnD. Our artists, writer and developer have been cooking up some game concepts and 3D character models!

We were lucky enough to sell our wares at the Ay Up Market this April and, thanks to the great footfall in Old Market Square and the support of locals, made enough to purchase one means Of production in the form of a second hand professional grade printer. We’re beyond excited about the possibilities this opens up, from ensuring the best quality is used in every step of making our prints, to publishing and producing our own zines, to collaborating with fellow artists to help them produce their own wares.

What have you got planned for the future?
Nottingham has so many beautiful buildings - high ceilings, arched windows. We want to, one day, own one of these spaces, host poetry nights and craft clubs, clothes swaps, workshops, as well as practical workspaces for Nottingham’s creatives to share resources and create epic collaborative art.

We are also collabing with local coffee shop, The Wandering Goblin, to produce some t-shirts coming out this summer. Keep an eye on our socials to pre-order your own!

Is there anything else you’d like to tell the LeftLion readers?
The creative fields are underfunded, with so many of our initiatives facing financial crisis and closure. Not to mention the rise of AI-generated art. Ultimately we'd like to thank you for supporting the small independents. It makes a huge difference!

@moonbuns.exe
moonbuns.co.uk