filacoste ratcatcher ratking

Filacoste Ratcatcher Ratking (2022) was a workshop that took place in May 2022 at the University of Huddersfield with a group of final year art students and their lecturers ( Ashley Holmes and Harriet Plewis) during the installation of the degree show. The workshop focussed on ideas of structured and chaotic group dynamics, dance and horizontal ontologies of becoming animal. The participants wore specially made grey jogging suits which referenced the uniforms worn by prisoners in British jails; these had been hand screen printed with the Filacoste logo in random placements. The idea of performing a ratking - the near mythical phenomenon of a large group of rats bound together by their tails in a death cult - developed out of the workshop conversations culminating in a short performance engaging in speed, thrown togetherness and exhaustion. Below is a clip of the performance fizzling out.