The Rats were a 1960s local band in Hull whose members went on to become David Bowie's Spiders from Mars backing band. Two members of the band sadly died of cancer.
A while ago someone in East Yorkshire had the idea of making a series of rat sculptures, each differentiated by individual painted designs on them.
The idea was inspired by rats in many of their guises. The Rats named above, rats in themselves, rats on ships which links them to Hull's seafaring past. Another idea which was added was medicine, which tries to fight cancer, which alas killed some of the aforementioned Rats. This is at once a zany idea, a fun idea and a serious idea.
So the rats were duly designed and 45 identical rats were made, each about 5 ft tall, and artists were asked to paint each one with a series of designs, decided from a competition. The designs are beautiful and varied as you might expect.
The sprawling exhibition runs from 3rd May until 30th August 2025. Finding the rats, which you can see on the map above, gives you a good excuse to explore the towns and places of Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire.
I managed to catch up with a rat at Burton Constable in the Stables Courtyard, near my exhibition. It was painted with a theme inspired by the Burton Constable Whale, which is a skeleton of a sperm whale that was stranded on a local beach at Tunstall in 1825.
A trip to the Hull Truck Theatre also saw me stumble across a rat in the night! This one was painted with the theme of rats on ships above deck and below deck.
I hope to catch up with more rats as the summer progresses. I will be adding to this blog post as I do so, so keep an eye on it!
