Started in 2012 and located on the Belgo building’s fifth floor, Rats 9 is sisters Valérie and Marie Polychuck’s artistic project. The Belgo, Montreal’s visual arts mecca, already boasted an impressive number of galleries of all sorts, but none of them focused on queer and feminist art, like Rats 9 does. "A few years ago, I had the opportunity to work within the space that would become Rats 9’s, which was an atelier back then,” Valerie recalls. “I shared it with my sister, and with time, we realized that we really enjoyed using the space for exhibitions and art shows. We started talking about doing more of that, and eventually launched the gallery with the help of two friends, Cal and Jessica." Through Rats 9 Valérie and her collective strive to create an accessible and inclusive space and to hone their curating skills. "When we started, we didn’t have much of an editorial line,” she admits. “Little by little, our philosophy emerged by itself, as we leaned more towards marginal artists who identified as queer and feminist, or both."
