Anab Jain

Designer and founder of Superflux (India), Royal College of Art

Anab Jain grew up in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. Studying filmmaking at the National Institute of Design meant crossing Gujarat and Rajasthan’s hot dusty landscapes. Moving to London she studied Interaction Design at the Royal College of Art, followed by working on machine intelligence at Microsoft Research.  

After the credit crisis, Anab co-founded the award-winning studio Superflux with her partner Jon Ardern. The primary driver was bypassing established narratives about the present and future, narratives that create a hypnosis of normality. Superflux were one of the first studios to pioneer speculative design, critical foresight, design fiction and experiential futures for businesses. Clients include Google AI, the Cabinet Office, Sony, the government of UAE and the United Nations Development Program. 

With 13 years contributing to the fields of speculative and futures design, Anab and the team built cautionary tales, super fictions, future archaeologies and immersive simulations. These materially-present opportunities to explore possible futures, be they living with urban floods or food shortages, allow the implementation of strategies today for this climate-altered present.  

Anab, Jon and their team’s hypothetical worlds have been exhibited globally, in China, at MoMA in New York, at La Biennale di Venezia, at the Barbican and the V&A.  

Her work is referenced by our students as a source of inspiration, she has contributed to lectures and mentorship programmes for the London College of Communication and also serves as Professor of Design Investigations at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. There her pedagogical approach is to instill a culture of radical enquiry as designers explore their changing role in a complex and uncertain world.