Date: Saturday, 18 July 2026
Time: 18:00–20:00
Location: Varia (Gouwstraat 3, Rotterdam)
Access: Free
Sign up: by sending an email to info@varia.zone
Food: there will be snacks and a light meal afterwards

This board game, designed by artist Yi Zhang, centers around the transnational, trans-century migration trajectory of the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus), also known as the common rat, street rat, sewer rat, dock rat, Hanover rat, or Norwegian rat. Their numerous names may reflect the species’ long journey and its many encounters with humans across different times, spaces, and regions.

Originating in northern China, Mongolia and Siberia, the brown rat has now spread to every continent except Antarctica (reaching as far as South Georgia Island near the Antarctic). They have become the most widespread rodent across most of Europe and North America, firmly established in worldwide ecosystems.

A “rat king” is a rare phenomenon in which a group of rats becomes physically tangled together by their tails, which has been recorded in many parts of the world. Zhang understands it as a kind of glitch in everyday reality, an entanglement that appears when enough encounters and conditions allow it to emerge. Through this game, we will collectively speculate on the movements of brown rat families and explore how their migration paths intersect with climate change, colonial navigation, human expansion, global trade, and ongoing efforts to eradicate them. What other forms of glitches might emerge within this continual flow of reality?

Yi Zhang (they/she) is an anti-disciplinary artist-researcher based in Eindhoven, who works across drawing, video, performance, installation, and workshops. Grounded in migration ecology and feminist ecology, their work traces the movements of human and non-human, material afterlives, and the border rejection towards these movements, through the modern history of invasive plants, the global war against rats, and the human hair trade. Their research focuses on how systems of categorization alienate, commodify, discard, and what rejects these frameworks. Alongside artistic practice, they are a fermenter and forager.

This game session is part of Common Dirt, an ongoing event series organized by Varia, in which we critically examine the intersections of biology and technology in Rotterdam. Together we explore how these two influence each other and how developments in nature and urban policy intertwine. Common Dirt is part of Varia’s Homebrewing research thread. With this research, we aim to collaboratively experiment and demystify technological practices.

This event is made possible with the kind support of Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie.