About

Ralph Borland Studio is a creative agency in Cape Town, South Africa. We offer a unique mix of skills and experience in art, design, curating, writing and research. We often work collaboratively with others to execute projects, using an established network of suppliers, designers, technologists and fabricators.

We are interested in the combination of function and communication in our work, and in the work of others. What do objects say while performing? How do we interpret objects and their relationships with people, and how do we design objects which communicate to their users and to others while performing their functions?

Studio lead Ralph Borland is an artist, curator and interdisciplinary knowledge worker who has practiced widely across disciplines. His work often engages with the creative use and social impacts of emerging technologies, taking place at an intersection of art, design, science and technology, and social engagement.

His project Suited for Subversion (2002), for example, in the permanent collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art, is a protective and performance suit for street protestors. It projects a heartbeat from the chest of the suit in time with the wearer’s pulse, acting as a piece of disarming armour.

African Robots and SPACECRAFT are projects which combine social development with aesthetic exploration. They engage in commerce, as a market hack or social enterprise, while enacting a form of design fiction in real life. The projects are informed by ideas around social sculpture and art as intervention.

We take on a range of work at the studio. Contact us via Instagram at Ralph Borland’s personal account @ralphborland