ANN DINGLI ART/DESIGN WRITING
WRITER, EDITOR, CURATOR
Ann is an architecture writer, editor and curator with an education background in Art History and Design Criticism. She is based in London and has been practicing independently since 2016.
IN PRINT
Ann writes for publications on art, architecture, design and culture – she has written for design titles including Dezeen, Domus, FRAME, The Plan Journal, Monocle, Architecture Today and Disegno Journal. In the UK, she was the first writer to report on the formation of the Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN), an independent activist and knowledge sharing group that has expanded to international scope.
In Malta, she authored a ten-part column titled Space Matters for Times of Malta – Malta's widest circulating daily newspaper –as the first-ever opinion series dedicated exclusively to architecture and the built environment. She is a regular art and architecture correspondent for the paper.
Ann has written, edited and contributed to books on design and art, including Before, During and After Us - Casa Bottega, 2024; Soap to Think With, 2023; V003, 2023; V002, 2022; Dar L-Ewropa, 2009; Modernist Malta, 2009; V001, 2019 and the exhibition catalogue for fuse, a site-specific art project delivered by the Valletta Cultural Agency. Ann copyedits for the independent data visualisation zine, Market Cafe Mag, and is writer and editor for Valletta Contemporary, a contemporary art gallery based in Valletta, Malta.
CURATION & SPECIAL PROJECTS
As a curator she has worked internationally in London, Venice and Accra. In Venice in 2023, she curated GĦALLIS, an exhibition held during the 18th Architecture Biennale, highlighting Malta's need for heritage buildings to be more boldly retrofitted. Ann led curation, writing and interpretation for the exhibition, which showcased a removable design for a coastal watchtower, Torri tal-Għallis (1658), on Malta’s north-eastern shore. As of 2024, Ann has brought curatorial direction to the ongoing project, The Myth of Abundance, produced by the AP Future Heritage Foundation. The project includes research on the history of water extraction and management in Malta, exploring a paradox between natural water scarcity in Malta and the popular ‘myth’ or misconception of its abundance.
Earlier in her career she ran communications for Endless Stair – a large-scale, timber public sculpture sited outside Tate Modern, designed by dRMM architects for the London Design Festival in 2014. Her first freelance curatorial project in 2019 was a photography and text-based exhibition titled ‘The Spaces that Connect Us’. The exhibition examined the social constructs of an internetless society in rural America and included photography and a creative non-fiction essay she wrote as part of her on-site research.
In 2020, Ann curated ‘Other Places’, a watercolour exhibition featuring works by Sebastian Tanti Burlò. She next curated and wrote the exhibition catalogue for ‘The Archetype Series’, a solo sculpture show featuring the work of multi-disciplinary artist Norbert Francis Attard. Ann also worked with Attard on his next solo exhibition, ‘Soap to Think With’, as curator and essayist, helping deliver a body of work comprising 111 pieces spanning a production period of two years.
Her first work in curation was for ‘Novelletta’ in 2010, bringing the theory-based exhibition to The Building Centre in London for the London Festival of Architecture. That year she also coordinated the exhibition and book, ‘Modernist Malta’, chronicling Malta’s canon of post-war Modernist landmarks.
TEACHING
In 2022, Ann joined the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Malta to deliver a yearly workshop titled ‘Modes of Art Writing’. Ann proposed the content and premise of the workshop to the faculty as a focused programme that would help students develop critical writing skills in concert with scholarly research. The workshop has been running ever since, with sessions covering ‘Range, Intention, Language’; ‘Authorial Position’; ‘Accessibility in Language’; and ‘Audience and Impact’. Modes of Art Writing examines the possibilities for art writing to translate from a position of historical, canonical grounding to address contemporary, everyday discourse.
Elsewhere, Ann has been a guest tutor within the New Architecture Writers (N.A.W.) curriculum, and a guest lecturer for the course module 'Understanding Interior Space', within the Faculty for the Built Environment, University of Malta. In 2025, she was invited to guest crit the BSc Architecture second year interim design reviews at the University of Reading.
IN PRACTICE
Alongside journalism and research, Ann works with globally renowned design and architecture studios positioning language as a tool within the design process. Her work for RIBA Stirling Prize winners dRMM was long-listed at the 2021 Dezeen Media Awards, under the 'Architecture Website of the Year' category, and was shortlisted in the 'Copy Writing' category at the Archiboo Media Awards 2021. In 2022, her content direction and creation for Valentino Architects' website was shortlisted at the Dezeen Media Awards.
Her work as a freelance writer for architects includes writing for design competitions, where she works with practices to compose research-led, tailored texts in response to design competitions. She also leads on thought-leadership writing for practices, using research to further studios' overall design ambition, and/or as a tool for building project opportunities, relationships, and presence within nascent and growing markets. She works with practitioners to refine and grow their concepts and research in support of their built work.