'Rat King' by Nate Davies is a hand-made book created for the graduation show Packed Lunch in 2022. This is a version of the project that was created for the occasion of the show as a culmination of the time spent on this project over the course, and Davies continues his work on this project as a graduate.
‘Rat King’ explores the deep-rooted effects of late capitalism through the metaphor of the Rat King: through aggressive globalisation and technologisation of even the simplest acts, humans have become irreversibly linked to each other. The work discusses humans’ complex relationships within society through rats, as they are the perfect analogue to human excess: the more waste we produce, the more rats come, unable to be exterminated: the only way to oust a rat population is to remove its cause. We are currently living through one of the most scandal-filled eras of politics, and ‘Rat King’ is constantly aware and inspired by this.
