The Rat Choir

Rats produce sixteen distinct sounds to express joy, many of them at frequencies beyond the range of human hearing. They give one another names and engage in social play governed by rules communicated through sound, living largely in darkness.

Composer and artist Gunnhildur Hauksdóttir has arranged and conducts a choral work for human voices based on these sixteen sounds. The rat vocalisations were recorded using sonographic imagery at a neuroscience and behavioural research laboratory in Canada dedicated to mapping animal behaviour and sound. From these recordings, Gunnhildur drew sixteen images and created a vocal score from each drawing. This material forms the basis of the choral work The Rat Choir (Rottukór).

Gunnhildur’s work often inhabits the boundary between sound and image. She uses drawing as a means of connection and translation—for example, transforming animal sounds or geological events into scores for human voices or instruments. Works such as Landslide, Unrest Plot, and Choir for One exemplify this approach.

The Rat Choir was first performed at Kjarvalsstaðir in 2020 and has since travelled across Europe, where it has been presented and performed in various contexts. The work is part of the collection of the National Gallery of Iceland and is currently included in the exhibition Resistance at Safnahúsið, on view until 2028.

Gunnhildur Hauksdóttir holds an MFA from the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam (2006) and a BFA from the Iceland University of the Arts (2002). She works across artistic disciplines and has collaborated extensively with dancers, composers, choirs, and scientists, including behavioural researchers. Her work engages with questions surrounding the boundaries of humanity, the movement of the earth, perceptions of time, and the coexistence of humans, animals, and geological matter.

Gunnhildur has exhibited internationally in museums and galleries, including Belvedere 21 in Vienna; Museu Municipal do Porto, Portugal; the Galt Museum, Canada; the Swiss Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2015 (representing Liechtenstein); the National Gallery of Iceland; and Reykjavík Art Museum. She serves on the board of Safnasafnið in Svalbarðseyri and is a member of the HilbertRaum exhibition space in Berlin. Her work is held in public collections including the National Gallery of Iceland, The Living Art Museum (Nýlistasafnið), the Goethe-Institut, the Hess Collection, and the University of Lethbridge Collection, Canada.

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