In 1775 two alchemists, Kufstein, and the Italian mystic and Rosicrucian cleric Geloni, created a series of ten homunculi. Two of these were non-corporeal until chanted to. One of the jars, known as The Monk, was accidentally dropped killing its humanoid inhabitant. After years of manifesting in sketchbooks and on canvas, Saint finally reformed The Monk. Their own living, breathing, otherworldly, small human monk entered their physical plane as they ascended from a basement holding the only just dead body of their beloved pet rat, Schiele.

 

According to Christian doctrine, ascension to Heaven in the end times requires you to reconcile, reunify and complete all divisions. The result was an inter-faith and interspecies collaboration taking form as a Christian and Buddhist funeral ceremony.

 

The Darkroom (The Funeral) comprised of Tibetan Buddhist ceremonial instruments, throat singing and chanting performed by The Monk homunculus whilst Saint, the RAT ART Minister, created a series of photograms known as Rat-o-grams, to preserve the likeness of the rats with the sacred benefits of them also being a transfer of contact.

 

Freakishly and impossibly, the Rat-o-grams grew lifelike fur whilst The Monk chanted to them. The theatrical, solemn and unsettling performance was repeated a total of three times in a desperate attempt to bring more life back to the dead. After a 40 hour fast over the duration of Christ’s entombment over the Paschal Triduum 2025, the final ceremony began.

 

The relationship humans have with rats is known as ‘commensal’ meaning eating at the same table. The word has its clear etymological links to the Christian practice of taking ‘communion’. The final stage of the preservations of Egon and Schiele was set amongst a Last Supper tableaux. Saint took on the task of injecting and submerging the bodies in ethanol, before sealing them in their jars where they will remain until they too depart this Earth.