Tabula Plena: Living Archives, Situated Reuse

Text Catalogue is a research-led collective formed by Ella Fleri Soler and Andrew Darmanin, working across architecture, design and the allied arts. We produce site-specific installations, critical writing, workshops and pedagogical projects engaging spatial, cultural and political conditions. Our work is often concerned with making visible the less tangible aspects of the built world around us. We call the shift in perspective ‘the switch’ and we love using architecture to make more than buildings.

We like to work collaboratively and across disciplines. Last year we formed part of Memoria - a team of 4 artists in residence at Berlin’s Spreepark Art Space where we worked on a site specific research project which resulted in our first international exhibition in 2026. This was an exciting moment for us as a collective which has grown organically within a Maltese context because we often see that the issues we are exploring are shared across regions. Meeting with international audiences continues to confirm this - most recently with the Documenting Difference works being recognised at the UIA World Congress of Architects in Barcelona as a selected project and shared through a presentation and panel discussion.

We practice as architects more formally and are visiting staff at University of Malta too, so our work as Text Catalogue is carefully fit between projects and calls for the occasional late night. Our work is always in progress, and it sometimes only feels like a body of work when we are able to make connections from one project to the next. Recent exposure through residencies abroad (Berlin and New York) has allowed us to slowly broaden our audience, refine our approach and keep us motivated for what might come next.

We recently founded the Reuse Collective which brings together architecture students and graduates to explore reuse culture and experimentation which will debut its first installation at a local festival this summer.