Global Art Projects, Melbourne, Australia

Global Art Projects is Lisa Warrener, Donald Williams and Michael McMahon.

Lisa and Donald are the day-to-day team, with Michael offering his specific legal and management advice as required.

We tend to work collaboratively, each bringing a different set of skills and experience to the projects we work on. This may mean we take a variety of roles dependent on the requirements of the client or individual job. For some projects, we bring specialist associates on board to work in partnership with us to offer you the best service possible.

Lisa Warrener

After training initially as an artist I undertook post-graduate study in arts administration and moved into various curatorial, arts funding, administration and management roles in both the public and private sectors. Prior to establishing Global Art Projects, I previously worked for the Australian War Memorial, the Australia Council for the Arts, the Australian Exhibitions Touring Agency and the City of Melbourne.

I consult to a range of government authorities on public art including commissioning of temporary and permanent artworks. I have been a Consultant Curator to the Metro Tunnel Creative Program since 2018, identifying creative opportunities and temporary art activation possibilities associated with this major construction project for Melbourne. I am currently working as a consultant curator on two new permanent art projects associated with Level Crossing Removal Program.

I recently delivered eight permanent art installations along the 134km of the Great Victorian Rail Trail on Taungurung Country in regional Victoria (with Murrindindi, Mansfield and Mitchell shires), as well as an integrated permanent public art for Darebin Council's Narrandjeri Stadium, and a major creative design treatment for Rail Projects Victoria's Metro Tunnel portal in Kensington. It is satisfying working with contemporary artists and designers to find creative solutions to enhance our urban and regional environments.

Along with my business partner Donald, I work as a Consultant Curator to Sofitel Melbourne On Collins curating exhibitions and artist residencies for Melbourne's established Hotel for the Arts.

One of the most rewarding projects I previously worked on was Australia's official participation in the Venice Biennale of Art, which I managed for 10 years, working with amazing artists such as Patricia Piccinini, Bill Henson and Howard Arkley, and many excellent curators. I also enjoyed the challenge of working as a Creative Producer for Festival Melbourne2006, (the cultural program for the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games), developing a complex and exciting program of exhibitions with artists from throughout the Commonwealth of Nations.

Being involved in arts industry committees is a great way to draw on some of my experience to give back to the arts community. It also provides me the opportunity to see a broad cross section of art and design practice from emerging and established contemporary creative practitioners. I have been fortunate to sit on numerous grant and art project assessment panels looking at hundreds of exhibition and arts project proposals, and also providing strategic advice on exhibition touring, public and urban art projects, acquisitions and collections. For many years I sat on the City of Melbourne's Arts and Heritage Collection Panel and the Contemporary Art Acquisition Sub-Committee (2005-2018). I was previously Chair of the City of Melbourne's Contemporary Art Acquisitions Panel, a member of the City's Public Art Advisory Committee and the Laneways Commissions panel and I also sat on the Arts Victoria Touring Victoria Committee for a number of years.

Donald Williams

After teaching art and design to high school students in Melbourne for more than a decade in the public and private systems, I began working within the education departments of the National Gallery of Victoria and the Tate Gallery, London. In these jobs I was lecturing on their collections as well as temporary exhibitions, developing outreach services and student/teacher activities. I moved from these roles into organising lecture programs, tours and symposiums, and artist liaison for a number of organisations, including regional galleries and then for the Biennale of Sydney.

From my educational background working with artists, I became interested in other aspects of artistic projects from concept development to exhibition coordination. Meeting and working closely with artists is my particular interest and I have great opportunities to do this in my work as Consultant Curator to Sofitel Melbourne On Collins and on many of the exhibition and artwork commissioning projects we are involved in.

I am also a writer and make freelance contributions to various publications and have published several books on art, design and architecture, including 7 major text books for Australian students published by McGraw-Hill Australia.

I recently managed a major artwork commissioning project for AMP Capital Investors delivering over 2000 artworks for a hotel refurbishment project and am currently involved in curating a permanent public art project for a major developer in Melbourne.

Michael McMahon

My background is in arts and entertainment law and arts management consultancy. Previously I managed the Arts Law Centre of Australia and the National Indigenous Advocacy Association.

My role within GAP is primarily providing legal advice and consulting on contracting and related management issues as needed.

In addition to being a principal of GAP I am a Producer of film and TV. I was a Founding partner of Matchbox Pictures, an Australian Film and TV production company and also of Big and Little Films. I produce drama, documentary and television productions for Matchbox and was Executive Producer of the very successful film Ali's Wedding in 2017. I am currently an Executive Producer for Tony Ayres Productions (TAP), a new film and TV production company based in Melbourne involved in delivering major TV productions Fires (ABCTV) and ClickBait (Netflix).

I have served on boards for Screen Tasmania and Film Victoria, and have recently been teaching at Swinburne University and the University of South Australia.

In 2018 I received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Annual Screen Producers Australia Awards.