Team

  • Claire Watson

    Claire Watson

    she/her
    Director, NETS Victoria
    Secretary, Board of Management

    Claire Watson is a passionate contributor to the arts community through her role on boards and advisory committees, as a judge for industry prizes, a writer, and lecturer. Her professional experience includes serving as an advisor on the Touring Panel for Creative Victoria (2014-2016), board member of the Public Galleries Association of Victoria (2017-2019) chairing their Advocacy and Research Committee; and a range of senior roles at arts organisations including BLINDSIDE, Asialink, Gippsland Art Gallery, and Bundoora Homestead Art Centre. Claire has curated over 100 exhibitions including the Artspace Mackay touring exhibition Violent Salt co-curated with Yhonnie Scarce; NETS Victoria/BLINDSIDE touring exhibition Synthetica (2015-2016); and the Asialink/BLINDSIDE touring exhibition Vertigo (2014). She has been a guest speaker at the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei; Galerie Soemardja, Indonesia; and the TransCultural Exchange Conference, USA. Claire is an Affiliate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, a member of the National Association of Visual Arts, an advocate for inclusive practices and a lover of innovation.

    Photograph: Kate Longley

  • Chantelle Mitchell

    she/her
    Senior Exhibitions Coordinator

    Chantelle Mitchell is a researcher, arts administrator and curator with experience across public, university and artist run organisations. Her research interests across the arts and humanities include extraction, temporality, and affect. Chantelle’s experience across the contemporary arts sphere extends to positions with Bundoora Homestead Art Centre, SEVENTH Gallery and the University of Melbourne. She has also held roles on the boards of SEVENTH Gallery and BLINDSIDE ARI. She was previously a predoctoral researcher with the University of Vienna, during which she presented and published new research considering entanglements of air, crisis and contemporary philosophy.

    Chantelle maintains an ongoing artistic and research-based practice with Jaxon Waterhouse, Ecological Gyre Theory. Together, they consider questions of environment, temporality, scale and place working with plants, animals and ecologies in thinking through relations. They have produced texts for Green Letters, Performance Philosophy, e-flux and unMagazine, and have presented their work nationally and internationally. In 2023 they are Curators in Residence at Monash Universities’ MADA Gallery.

  • Hester Lyon

    she/her
    Exhibitions Coordinator

    Hester Lyon is an arts worker, writer and curator. Recent appointments include Gallery & Museum Program Officer at the Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery and GeoCentre, and Board of Directors at SEVENTH Gallery. Hester has previously worked at a number of public and commercial organisations including LON Gallery, VAULT Magazine, Monash University Museum of Art, ARC ONE Gallery and the Ballarat International Foto Biennale. Her writing has appeared in Memo Review, Fine Print Magazine and VAULT Magazine. Hester holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and Master of Art Curatorship from the University of Melbourne.

    Photograph: Samantha Lynch

     

  • Sherryn Vardy

    she/her
    Exhibitions Coordinator

    Sherryn Vardy is a dedicated conservator and arts administrator who has held various roles including at Latrobe Regional Gallery, Cowwarr Art Space, Gippsland Art Gallery and McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery. In a previous position at NETS Victoria she curated and developed the touring exhibition Made to last: The conservation of art. During her time at ACMI she was Exhibition Project Coordinator and Assistant Registrar in the national and international touring team and travelled with major exhibitions. At AMaGA Victoria Sherryn was both a Museum Accreditation Program Manager and Regional Digitisation Officer – Bushfire Recovery Project where she worked with small museums and communities. Sherryn holds a Bachelor and Graduate Diploma of Visual Arts from Monash University and a Master of Cultural Material Conservation from the University of Melbourne. She is on both the National Council and Victorian Branch committees of the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material (AICCM) and currently operates a private conservation practice in Gippsland.