The Malta Society of Arts is awarding its prestigious Gold Medal for 2025 to Darrin Zammit Lupi in recognition of his outstanding contribution to photographic art over many years, as well as his significant work in the field of journalistic photography. His continued dedication has strengthened photographic practice in humanitarian and social contexts, both in Malta and beyond.
We warmly congratulate Darrin Zammit Lupi on this well-deserved recognition!
Darrin Zammit Lupi Biography
Darrin Zammit Lupi (b. 1968, Malta) is an award –winning photojournalist whose lens has taken him from the heart of the Mediterranean to disaster zones, conflict areas, and film sets around the world. Known for his unflinching yet compassionate eye, he has spent more than three decades capturing moments of crisis, resilience, and beauty.
He began his career in the early 1990s with a brief stint at The Malta Independent before turning freelance. In 1995, he documented the war in Bosnia, recording both the human cost and quiet resilience amid devastation. He later joined the Times of Malta, where he spent 20 years chronicling the nation’s political, social, and cultural history. In 1997, he also became a contract photographer for Reuters. His assignments for both outlets have taken him across the globe, covering humanitarian crises, natural disasters, and conflicts – from the migration emergency in the central Mediterranean and the Balkans to the Southeast Asian tsunami, the Libyan uprising, the Costa Concordia disaster, the L’Aquila earthquake, and the exodus of Ukrainian refugees after the 2022 Russian invasion.
One of the defining threads of Zammit Lupi’s career is his long –term documentation of irregular migration across the central Mediterranean. Since the late 1990s, he has been on the front lines – aboard rescue ships, in overcrowded boats, and inside detention and open centres – recording the human face of migration. His photographs, often stark yet deeply humane, chronicle exhaustion, relief, and quiet dignity amid upheaval. This work culminated in Isle Landers (2014), a book spanning nearly a decade of migration to Malta. Supported by the Malta Arts Fund and UNHCR, the project sought to challenge prejudice by making migrants’ stories visible. More than ten years later, in newer incarnations, its accompanying exhibition continues to tour internationally – from Malta to France, Japan, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the UAE, Australia, and the USA.
His dedication has earned him numerous honours, including the Yannis Behrakis International Photojournalism Award (2021) for a personal photo essay on his late daughter’s battle with cancer; Malta’s National Photography Lifetime Achievement Award (2022); Photographer of the Year by The Societies in the UK (2016); the Mediterranean Journalism Award in Photography from the Anna Lindh Foundation (2017); the Refugee Festival honorary prize in Norway (2023) for his long –term documentation of migration; and fifteen awards at the Malta Journalism Awards.
His work for Reuters has appeared in TIME, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Guardian, Paris Match, Geo, Der Spiegel, and many others. Zammit Lupi holds a Masters with Distinction in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from the University of the Arts London.
Some of his works are held in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Malta and the Human Rights Archive at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, USA, as well as in private collections.
Beyond journalism, Zammit Lupi is an accomplished film unit stills photographer, bringing his documentary sensibility to cinema. He has worked on productions such as the upcoming biblical epic ZERO A.D., The Bombing of Pan Am 103, and Surviving Pompeii, distilling the mood and energy of a scene into a single frame. Filmmakers value his quiet presence on set and his ability to produce images that are both technically flawless and emotionally charged.
He is equally at home in the world of theatre photography, where his skill in reading light, movement, and emotion allows him to translate live performance into still images that retain the energy of the stage. Working with leading Maltese theatre companies and international productions, he has documented everything from intimate plays to large –scale musicals, creating visual archives that celebrate the artistry of performance and the fleeting moments that make it memorable.
Whether photographing a rescue at sea, a disaster zone, a stage performance, or a film set, Darrin Zammit Lupi approaches each assignment with the same guiding principle: to make images that matter – images that endure, and that speak to the human experience with honesty and respect.
Gold Medal Award History
The Malta Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, established in 1852, was, for at least a century, the islands’ only nationally recognised promoter of the Arts. Palazzo de La Salle served as the meeting place and exhibition space for the Accademia di Belle Arti group founded by Josef Kalleja in 1930. Notably, in the early 1950’s, the Society came to the aid of the newly-formed Modern Art movements and awarded scholarships to some of the great artists of the time, including Giuseppe Calì, Antonio Sciortino and Joseph Briffa.
Throughout the years, the Exhibition Halls of Palazzo de La Salle have been graced with the works of Malta’s great masters including Anton Inglott, Gianni Vella, Vincent Apap, Lazzaro Pisani and Edward Caruana Dingli.
The first Gold Medal given by the Malta Society of Arts was in 1896, when it was awarded to Emidio Vassallo for his achievements in metal engraving. Past recipients of the Gold Medal Award over the past 127 years have included such illustrious names as Sir Temi Zammit (1904), Robert Caruana Dingli (1916), Emvin Cremona (1963), Oreste Chircop (1997), Richard England (1984), Joseph Calleja (2007), Karmen Azzopardi (2009), Harry Alden (2013) and Carmine Lauri (2015) to name but a few.
For more on the history of the MSA’s Gold Medal visit www.artsmalta.org/gold-medal-award
The award will be conferred by H.E. Myriam Spiteri Debono, President of Malta during a private ceremony taking place on 26 January 2026 at our Concert Hall.
