Joy Charpentier: New Aberdeen Bestiary 鈥撀燭he Rat
The latest exhibition in the New Aberdeen Bestiary project, The Rat, showcases works by multidisciplinary French artist Joy Charpentier, realised during his residency at peacock & the worm. Comprising of installation and prints, the exhibition presents an alternative reality where rats become symbols of resistance against conformity, order and systems of violence and authority.
Rebelling, rioting and seeking revenge, reversing the stigma attached to them, rats are the protagonists of a punk utopia where they take power, crawling over the effigies of authority and state violence. Using found online imagery and repurposed objects, queer stereotypes are subverted and rearticulated in absurd, surreal compositions. The exhibition explores the power of laughter as a tool to criticise and overturn received systems of power and authority that perpetuate mechanisms of violence, oppression and discrimination.
Rats are pests, undesirable invaders, carriers of disease. They transfer feelings of disgust and unease onto the subjects they are layered on, while rejecting their authority. At the same time, how the animals are reproduced deprives them of their unsavoury connotations: as drawn images in bright pastel colours, in floral frames and on glittery papers, the rats are silly and cute, conflating different registers that turn them into detourned symbols in themselves. In this sense, the rats could also be seen as an unspoken double for the many groups and individuals that are subject to discrimination, stereotypes and oppression, taking over and celebrating their colours.
Throughout the exhibition, the rat is often part of a pack: rather than a singular, isolated entity, it is multiplied, a collective. In systems that benefit from the isolation of individuals, there is power in unity, and thinking and acting collectively can be a form of resistance to oppression and discrimination. Rainbow-coloured rats, moving as one, can be, as Joy writes, 鈥榓 life-saving infestation.鈥�
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The latest exhibition in the New Aberdeen Bestiary project, The Rat, showcases works by multidisciplinary French artist Joy Charpentier, realised during his residency at peacock & the worm. Comprising of installation and prints, the exhibition presents an alternative reality where rats become symbols of resistance against conformity, order and systems of violence and authority.
Rebelling, rioting and seeking revenge, reversing the stigma attached to them, rats are the protagonists of a punk utopia where they take power, crawling over the effigies of authority and state violence. Using found online imagery and repurposed objects, queer stereotypes are subverted and rearticulated in absurd, surreal compositions. The exhibition explores the power of laughter as a tool to criticise and overturn received systems of power and authority that perpetuate mechanisms of violence, oppression and discrimination.
Rats are pests, undesirable invaders, carriers of disease. They transfer feelings of disgust and unease onto the subjects they are layered on, while rejecting their authority. At the same time, how the animals are reproduced deprives them of their unsavoury connotations: as drawn images in bright pastel colours, in floral frames and on glittery papers, the rats are silly and cute, conflating different registers that turn them into detourned symbols in themselves. In this sense, the rats could also be seen as an unspoken double for the many groups and individuals that are subject to discrimination, stereotypes and oppression, taking over and celebrating their colours.
Throughout the exhibition, the rat is often part of a pack: rather than a singular, isolated entity, it is multiplied, a collective. In systems that benefit from the isolation of individuals, there is power in unity, and thinking and acting collectively can be a form of resistance to oppression and discrimination. Rainbow-coloured rats, moving as one, can be, as Joy writes, 鈥榓 life-saving infestation.鈥�
Artists on show
