They laugh, and groove to music, exhibit empathy, and have complex social structures. They are a sister species; just as we spread across the world and developed, they followed right beside us. And yet, many find them appalling, with their beady eyes and maggoty tails. Tests, pests, and pets. These are the categories in which we define our relationship to Rats.
Using these rat forms I seek to destabilize our established, often resentful relationship. By emphasizing them and their interactions they become anthropomorphized, attributed with human-like identity and characteristics. They are not necessarily neutral spaces, but more digestible sites to explore concepts of identity, relationships, rest, and society; without the burden of the human body.
The rats that started this project all come from the same base sculpture that was dissected and cast to make a mold. Their apparent identicality when amassed in a group fades away when you stop to look at the individual. Each one is unique, picking up marks from their time in my studio. This clashes with our own history of ignoring the individual; grouping people and treating them with contempt, like pests.
The other large sculptures of rats lounging on pillows and in fabrics contemplates what it means to experience comfort and rest, both individually and with others. Using floral, fiber, and wallpaper decorations I explore places of safety and domesticity. Away from this ‘rat race’ of humanity, where hustle culture and stigmas around rest is commonplace. Here with these rats, the quiet and mundane is not just sought out, but accepted.
It begs the question, if these rats can function both collectively and individually, find rest, comfort, closeness, and empathy with one another regardless of outside factors, then who should be the ones labeled vermin? Us or them?
