Instagram story viewer> @rrael> Posts

Ronald Rael

@rrael

146.4K

followers

2437

following

2026: YBCA | Harwood Museum | VIA Art Fund | Creative Capital |
2025: Seoul Biennial | National Design Award | Desert X | Cooper Hewitt Triennial

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Download All

THE WORKSHOP
Commissioned by YBCA, The Workshop is at once a utilitarian site of production and a harbinger of a future of sustainable abundance. The exterior cladding was fabricated using desktop 3D printers and bioplastic-specifically polylactic acid (PLA) fila-ment. Unlike standard petroleum-based plastics, PLA is fully biodegradable, made from renewable organic sources such as cornstarch, sugarcane, and tapioca roots. The wavelike tiles double as planters for small succulents, transforming the walls into a vertical garden. Inside, a 3D printer installed on a workbench is producing additional tiles through the run of the exhibition.

The roof is made from recycled traditional Korean brooms from a previous project exhibited in Seoul as part of the biennial for architecture and urbanism entitled “Swept Away”, which is introduces both labor and domesticity into the space of creativity.

The Workshop, 2026. Photos: @matthewmillmanphoto
@ybca @vasfsf

3D-printed bioplastic, broomcorn, wood, lumber, 3D printer, 3D-printed objects, tools

Project team: Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello with Yoni Asega, Dorothy Dávila, David Prigge, David Tim, and 0 Soo Vegh taken in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts by @rrael

235

0

a day ago

Via Binarii (2019) is now part of the collection and permanent exhibition “Models from the Past for the Future” of @designmuseumgent. Looking forward to discovering these seven teapots’ new home* this week!

“A line of makers stretching around the world from East to West. For Via Binarii, the teapot is the starting point. Drawing inspiration from the historic trade routes that delivered goods and knowledge from the exotic East, we trace the origins of the teapot, travelling from China to England, and continue this story in a contemporary age.”

🙏🏼 @evelienbracke, Eva Van Regenmortel, @olivier_vandh, @bnt.vdv, @crstnbrgn

Big thanks to @jkeep_artpottery @earlyamericanrobotpottery @rrael @vasfsf @emergingobjects @kammburger @the_mollylu @emrecanceramics @shlomitbauman @noamdover @itayohaly for collaborating with us on this project back in 2019 and your continuous inspiration!

Also a slightly sad moment: saying goodbye to ‘Artefacts of a New History’ and ‘Skafaldo Bowl’, who were Unfold’s ambassadors in the previous permanent exhibition and will now take a step back into the archives.

📷 @anwyn.howarth courtesy Collection Design Museum Gent

#ceramic3dprinting #ceramics #3dprinting #dataclay taken in Design Museum Gent by @rrael

137

3

2 days ago

Tending the fire, burning it down to the coals, and sweeping out the ashes — to prepare for baking biscochitos in the horno.

Our Director of Pueblo Foods, Henrietta Gomez of Taos Pueblo, testing out the new 3-D printed earthen oven designed & built by @rrael.

"Liminal"
3D-printed adobe
By Ron Rael

For the "Unearthing Futures / Desenterrando Futuros" exhibit at @harwoodmuseum. taken in Taos, New Mexico by @rrael

349

9

2 days ago

SANCTUARY

Commissioned by YBCA, Sanctuary exemplifies Rael San Fratello’s celebrated, ongoing investigations of 3D-printed earthen architecture. Created entirely on-site using soil, the structure offers a quiet space for reflection while serving as a test case for ecologically sound building methods. Its walls are perforated with glass solar rods salvaged from the 2011 collapse of the Bay Area company Solyndra, a flash point in debates over federally funded sustainability efforts. By merging contemporary robotics with ancestral building traditions, the architects suggest that the future of building may lie not in erasing the past, but in embracing it.
Sanctuary, 2026

3D-printed soil, Solyndra glass rods, plywood, mirrored inflatable

Project team: Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello with Logman Arja, Yoni Asega, Dorothy Dávila, David Prigge, David Tim, and 0 Soo Vegh

@ybca @vasfsf taken in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts by @rrael

196

1

2 days ago

Thank you to everyone who joined us last week for the opening of “Dread Scott: The Body Politic” and “Rael San Fratello: Prototypes and Provocations.” We loved seeing the galleries filled with conversation and curiosity—and now’s your chance to take a close look at these shows.

See the work this week during normal gallery hours: Wed 11am–8pm (with free admission all day), or Thu through Sun 11am–5pm.

Or see the exhibitions during the Nexus Party, co-presented by MoAD & YBCA this Thursday night.

Photos by Mahelly Ferreira for Drew Altizer Photography. Ronald Rael, Rene Morales, Mari Robles, Dread Scott, and Virginia San Fratello smile at the camera for a group photo inside the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts lobby at night. The lighting behind them is bright pink and yellow. taken in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts by @rrael

498

23

3 days ago

Last night was the opening of Rael San Fratello: Prototypes and Provocations curated by Rene Morales (@renebot2) at The Yerba Burna Center for the Arts (@ybca) showcasing a quarter century of our collaboration working through the borderlands of place, time and technology through play, activism, and invention.

It’s a great honor to reflect upon a life’s work to date and have the opportunity to create new works thanks to the support of so many: thank you to the entire staff at YBCA— such an incredible group of people who assisted and supported in the unboxing of a life’s work with care and curiosity, and whose attention to detail and skills around installation, craft, workpersonship, and rigor was unparalleled. This ambitious exhibition could not have been achievable without YBCA’s incredible team. So much of the work came about through research at the Univers of California Berkeley, especially in the departments of Art Practice (@ucberkeley_artpractice) and Architecture as well as San Jose State University. So many students have worked for us over the past 18 years from these institutions and I was so greatful that former student, now professor, @logmanarja who runs @clayponic, returned to assist in the fabrication of Sanctuary.

It’s also an honor to open alongside longtime Hero @dreadscottart and his show Dread Scott: The Body Politic! Thanks to all who came out! Rael San Fratello: Prototypes and Provocations Runs through Jan 31, 2027.

#raelsanfratello @vasfsf taken in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts by @rrael

632

8

5 days ago

Among the works visitors can see in “Rael San Fratello: Prototypes and Provocations” is the “Teeter-totter Wall.”

In 2019, Virginia San Fratello and Ronald Rael slid three bright pink teeter-totters through the slats of the border wall near Puerto de Anapra. Within minutes, kids and adults from both sides of the wall began to ride the teeter-totters. The project underscored the delicate balance between Mexico and the U.S., normally a site of violence and oppression. Rael reflected on how the border wall had been transformed:

“We thought that this would be a moment to show to the world a very important reality of the border, which is that the border isn’t a desolate place where no one lives. This is a world where women live and children live, and that we can use play as a kind of vehicle for activism.”

See artifacts, documentation, and the teeter-totter itself on opening night Fri. 9/25 from 6–9pm.

Rael San Fratello, “Teeter-totter Wall,” 2019. Photos and videos courtesy of the artists. by @rrael

4k

52

8 days ago

368

19

9 days ago

Opening Sep 25: explore the fascinating work of Rael San Fratello, where cutting-edge technology meets traditional building techniques.

A centerpiece of “Rael San Fratello: Prototypes and Provocations” is “Sanctuary,” a new large-scale commission 3D-printed onsite in our gallery using soil and water. The cylindrical structure offers a quiet space for reflection while demonstrating the studio’s innovative approach to ecologically-sound building.

“Sanctuary” expands on techniques developed in the 2019 project “Mud Frontiers.” Bringing together ancestral adobe construction techniques rooted in Puebloan and Indo-Hispano traditions with large-scale 3D printing, Rael San Fratello created structures from locally sourced sand, silt, clay, straw, and water—essentially printing architecture directly from the landscape.

These practices are being explored further with “Sanctuary.” Be among the first to see the completed work on opening night Fri. 9/25 from 6–9pm.

Rael San Fratello, “Mud Frontiers," 2019. Photos courtesy of the artists. taken in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts by @rrael

215

4

16 days ago

678

6

18 days ago

300

10

20 days ago

In October of 2019, Donald Trump announced, “You know why we’re going to win New Mexico? Because they want safety on their border. And they didn’t have it. And we’re building a wall on the border of New Mexico, and we’re building a wall in Colorado.” Why he announced wall construction in Colorado is unclear, as it is not a state that borders Mexico, although many point to his lack of understanding of both geography and his own policies, but it also may point to the persisting colonial attitudes and racism towards the state of New Mexico and its people. The United States Congress did not admit New Mexico as the 47th state until January 6, 1912 despite that it had been eligible for statehood 60 years earlier, delayed due to the perception that its majority Hispanic (a word invented by the Nixon administration) and Indigenous population was “alien” to U.S. culture and political values.

Yesterday, Trump posted to his social media account a suggestion that, similar to his renaming of the the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and the recent change of Lake Ontario to Lake America, the State of New Mexico be renamed to New America.

Many have denounced this suggestion, often noting the history that New Mexico has had the name, “New Mexico” even before the country of Mexico existed. A 1720 map of North America by the Dutch Cartographer Henri Abraham Chatelain distinguishes the lands of the north as Nouveau Mexique and those below, what appears to be the region below modern day Matamoros and west as Nouvelle Espagne, distinguishing the New Mexico from New Spain.

As early as 1561 (260 years before Mexican independence), Spanish colonial explorers used el Nuevo México to refer to nothern lands reported to exist far to the north of the recently conquered Aztec Empire. On July 12, 1598, Juan de Oñate established the New Spain colony of Santa Fe de Nuevo Méjico at the new village of San Juan de los Caballeros as it’s capital, today reclaimed in the original Tewa name Ohkay Owingeh, which was also known for centuries as San Juan Pueblo. [Continued in comments…]

#newmexico by @rrael

2k

64

24 days ago