Dr Ying-Lan Dann

I am a lecturer, practitioner and researcher within the Bachelor of Interior Design (Honours) at RMIT University. I use fieldwork, drawing, film, photography, installation, exhibition and interior design to engage creatively and sensitively with historical, relational, durational, material, social and environmental forces, events and conditions.

I hold a PhD in architecture titled 'Drawing with The World drawing Itself', which offers approaches to foster emplaced, mutualistic, collaborative and improvisational design acts. I hold a Master of Architecture (RMIT University, School of Architecture and Urban Planning) and Bachelor of Fine Art, Melbourne University, VCA (HD).

I have held coordination roles in Interior Design Professional Practice (2018-2022) and First-Year (2022 -2026). 

I am a registered architect and founding director of Sertori Lau Architecture. I regularly contribute to Australian interior design press including InteriorsAU (formerly Artichoke Magazine). I am an advisory member of the RMIT Design Archives. Forthcoming book chapter contributions include Exhibiting Structures in ‘Parallel Structures’ (Ed. Dr Veronica Tello, UNSW), URO Publishing 2027.

My exhibition design, installations and research have been featured in Australian and International institutions including exhibition designs for Nicholas Mangan, A World Undone, Museum of Contemporary Art, 2024 and Bianca Hester, UNSW Gallery, 2024. My installation Circular Temporalities was selected for inclusion at the Film and Architecture Symposium, Toronto University, 2023. With my collaborator Dr Saskia Schut, I presented Drawing as a web of Movement at the conference Researching Beyond Words, École d'architecture de Lyon, 2023. In 2023 - 2024, I led exhibition design for Parallel Structures, an Australian Research Council Linkage project developed in collaboration with UNSW Art & Design (University of New South Wales), the Institute for Culture and Society (Western Sydney University) and Sydney College of the Arts (University of Sydney), partnering with the Murray Art Museum Albury.