Michael McMillan

Last updated

Michael McMillan
Born1962 (age 61–62)
High Wycombe, UK
NationalityBritish
Alma mater Sussex University
Central Saint Martins
Occupation(s)Playwright, artist/curator
Notable workThe West Indian Front Room

Michael McMillan (born 1962) [1] is a British playwright, artist, curator and educator, born in England to parents who were migrants from St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). [2] As an academic, he focuses his research on "the creative process, ethnography, oral histories, material culture and performativity". [3] He is the author of several plays, and as an artist his first installation, The West Indian Front Room, was exhibited at the Geffrye Museum in 2005, going on to inspire a 2007 BBC Four documentary Tales from the Front Room, a website, [4] [5] a 2009 book, The Front Room: Migrant Aesthetics in the Home, and various international commissions, such as Van Huis Uit: The Living Room of Migrants in the Netherlands (Imagine IC, Amsterdam, and Netherlands Tour, 2007–08) [6] and A Living Room Surrounded by Salt (IBB, Curaçao, 2008). [7] A more recent installation of the Walter Rodney Bookshop featured as part of the 2015 exhibition No Colour Bar at the Guildhall Art Gallery.

Contents

McMillan has said of the range of his work: "I was a painter before I was a playwright/dramatist and through making live art pieces and writing critically about performance, photography, visual arts culture, I have come home in a sense to fine arts, through making mixed-media installations, which given my interest in performativity background can be seen also as theatre sets. My work and practice is often interdisciplinary using mixed media, installations and performance." [7]

Life and career

Michael McMillan was born in 1962 in High Wycombe, UK, of Caribbean migrant heritage; [7] as he has said, "Both my parents came from St Vincent & the Grenadines and ... were 'arrivants', to use Edward Kamau Brathwaite's term, from colonies where they were imbued with English culture." [8] Given this background, he has noted: "I grew up with learning three languages: the creole spoken by my parents as a fusion of an English lexicon and an African grammar; the Jamaican English spoken on the streets of Hackney and around London and the London English spoken at school." [9] He won an essay competition, run by Len Garrison's ACER (Afro-Caribbean Education Resource), [10] and after going to FESTAC 77 (the Second World Festival of African Arts and Culture), he wrote his play The School Leaver (1978), which was produced at the Royal Court Theatre's Young Writers' Festival. [11]

McMillan read sociology and African and Asian studies at Sussex University, graduating in 1984, [3] and then earned an MA degree in Independent Film & Video from Central Saint Martins, London, in 1991. [12] From 2000, he was a Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow [13] at the London College of Communication and went on to become, since 2003, a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of the Arts London (UAL), and a researcher and Associate Lecturer at the London College of Fashion (LCF), teaching predominantly Cultural & Historical Studies. [2] [12] He was awarded a practice-based Arts Doctorate from Middlesex University in 2010. [14] [15] In 2010–11, he was Arts in Health & Well Being artist-in-residence in North Wales. [3]

Writing

McMillan's interest in oral history and the stories of first-generation Caribbean migrants is reflected in early writings such as Brother to Brother (1996) and The Black Boy Pub & Other Stories (1997), which used recordings of interviews done during a year's residence in High Wycombe, [16] where many of those arriving in particular from SVG had settled. [17] [18] As a dramatist, he has had work performed and produced by the Royal Court Theatre, Channel 4, BBC Radio 4, and in venues across the UK. [2] [19] His play The School Leaver was published by the Black Ink Collective in 1978, when McMillan was 16 years old, and was reprinted several times. [20] His other plays include Master Juba (2006), Babel Junction (2006), and a new translation of Bertholt Brecht's The Good Person of Sezuan , [21] set in Jamaica in the 1980s. [8]

McMillan has written a number of essays and articles in national and international publications, and has presented papers at conferences and symposiums in the UK, Europe, Canada, USA, Caribbean and Brazil, including as keynote speaker at the 2006 "Islands in Between" Conference on Language, Literature & History of the Eastern Caribbean (University of the West Indies, School of Continuing Studies, St. Vincent & the Grenadines). [22]

Installations

Alongside teaching, McMillan has also worked on mixed-media exhibitions and publications. His first installation, The West Indian Front Room (he uses "the term 'West Indian' as it refers to a particular moment of post-World War II Caribbean migration to England and the wider Diaspora"), [7] drew on memories of the domestic setting created by his parents and their like after they migrated to Britain, featuring a recreation of a typical front room of the 1970s to raise "questions about the constructions of diaspora, identity, race, class and gender in the domestic interior". [23] According to cultural theorist Stuart Hall, "The front room is a conservative element of black domestic life, which is more complex and rich than the generality of the society ever realises"; nevertheless, McMillan recalled in an article in The Guardian :

"Growing up in our front room caused me much aesthetic distress. The wallpaper and carpet never seemed to match, and Jim Reeves would be crooning from the Blue Spot radiogram on a Sunday. This room was based on the Victorian parlour and was inscribed with a formal code of behaviour because it was reserved for receiving guests. It was packed with furniture, ornaments and soft furnishings surrounded by a gallery of pictures and photographs." [24]

Mounted at London's Geffrye Museum in October 2005, the critically acclaimed exhibition resonated with more than 35,000 visitors who represented a variety of ages, genders and social, cultural and ethnic backgrounds. [24] Different versions have since been remade in other countries and cultural settings, including in the Netherlands and in Curaçao, and the associated BBC4 television documentary Tales from the Front Room was broadcast in 2007. He has also made presentations on The Front Room at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2009), Clark University, Worcester (2009) and Northwestern University, Chicago, (2008). [22] A book entitled The Front Room: Migrant Aesthetics in the Home followed in 2009. [25]

Another installation-based exhibition was The Beauty Shop (2008) at the 198 Gallery in south London, [26] where, as with The Front Room, McMillan "tried to create a tangible sense of performance. Visitors were encouraged to respond to them as theatre as much as art." [27]

In 2015, he recreated the Walter Rodney Bookshop as an installation within the exhibition No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960–1990 at the Guildhall Art Gallery (July 2015–January 2016), [28] and participated in related events. [29] [30] [31]

Another recent work is Doing Nothing Is Not An Option, a site-responsive mixed-media installation to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa by exploring the relationship between local people in Peckham and the memory of the Nigerian writer and activist. [32] [33]

Selected curatorial work

Selected publications

Plays and performance pieces

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of the Home</span> Museum in London, England

The Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum, is a free museum in the 18th-century Grade I-listed former almshouses on Kingsland Road in Hoxton, London. The museum's change of name was announced in 2019. The museum explores home and home life from 1600 to the present day with galleries which ask questions about 'home', present diverse lived experiences, and examine the psychological and emotional relationships people have with the idea of "home" alongside a series of period room displays.

Dame Sonia Dawn Boyce is a British Afro-Caribbean artist and educator who lives and works in London. She is a Professor of Black Art and Design at University of the Arts London. Boyce's research interests explore art as a social practice and the critical and contextual debates that arise from this area of study. Boyce has been closely collaborating with other artists since 1990 with a focus on collaborative work, frequently involving improvisation and unplanned performative actions on the part of her collaborators. Boyce's work involves a variety of media, such as drawing, print, photography, video, and sound. Her art explores "the relationship between sound and memory, the dynamics of space, and incorporating the spectator". To date, Boyce has taught Fine Art studio practice for more than 30 years in several art colleges across the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Petry</span> American multi-media artist and author (born 1960)

Michael Petry is an American multi-media artist and author who lives and works in London. He is director of MOCA, London, and co-founder of the Museum of Installation, also in London. He was formerly the Curator of the Royal Academy Schools Gallery, Guest Curator at the KunstAkademi, Oslo, and Research Fellow at the University of Wolverhampton.

Asher Bilu is an Australian artist who creates paintings, sculptures and installations. He has also contributed to several films by Director Paul Cox as production designer. He was born in Israel, and began his career as an artist soon after arriving in Australia in 1956. From the start, his art has been abstract, with particular emphasis on technological experimentation. His technique changes as he investigates the use of new media, but his work always reflects his fascination with light, and his love of music and science, especially cosmology.

Keith Piper is a British artist, curator, critic and academic. He was a founder member of the groundbreaking BLK Art Group, an association of black British art students, mostly based in the West Midlands region of the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tam Joseph</span> Dominica-born British painter (born 1947)

Tam Joseph is a Dominica-born British painter, formerly known as Tom Joseph. Described as "a uniquely talented, multidimensional artist" by art historian Eddie Chambers, "Tam Joseph has contributed a number of memorable paintings that locate themselves at the centre of socio-political commentary, often making work that shocks as it amuses, amuses as it shocks. Typical in this regard are paintings for which Joseph is universally loved and respected, such as 'Spirit of the Carnival' and 'UK School Report'."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fowokan</span> Jamaican-born visual artist (born 1943)

George "Fowokan" Kelly is a Jamaican-born visual artist who lives in Britain and exhibits using the name "Fowokan". He is a largely self-taught artist, who has been practising sculpture since 1980. His work is full of the ambivalence he sees in the deep-rooted spiritual and mental conflict between the African and the European. Fowokan's work is rooted in the traditions of pre-colonial Africa and ancient Egypt rather than the Greco-Roman art of the west. He has also been a jeweller, essayist, poet and musician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Winston Branch</span> Saint Lucian artist (born 1947)

Winston Branch OBE is a British artist originally from Saint Lucia, the sovereign island in the Caribbean Sea. He still has a home there, while maintaining a studio in California. Works by Branch are included in the collections of Tate Britain, the Legion of Honor De Young Museum in San Francisco, California, and the St Louis Museum of Art in Missouri. Branch was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1978, the British Prix de Rome, a DAAD Fellowship to Berlin, a sponsorship to Belize from the Organization of American States, and was Artist in Residence at Fisk University in Tennessee. He has been a professor of fine arts and has taught at several art institutions in London and in the US. He has also worked as a theatrical set designer with various theatre groups.

Hurvin Anderson is a British painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peckham Platform</span> Art gallery in London

Peckham Platform is a public art gallery in London that commissions and exhibits work by contemporary artists, usually in collaboration with local community groups.

Claudette Elaine Johnson is a British visual artist. She is known for her large-scale drawings of Black women and her involvement with the BLK Art Group, of which she was a founder member. She was described by Modern Art Oxford as "one of the most accomplished figurative artists working in Britain today". A finalist for the Turner Prize in 2024, Johnson was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts the same year.

Errol Lloyd is a Jamaican-born artist, writer, art critic, editor and arts administrator. Since the 1960s he has been based in London, to which he originally travelled to study law. Now well known as a book illustrator, he was runner-up for the Kate Greenaway Medal in 1973 for his work on My Brother Sean by Petronella Breinburg.

No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960–1990 was a major public art and archives exhibition, the first of its kind in the UK, held at the Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London, over a six-month period, with a future digital touring exhibition, and an associated programme of events. No Colour Bar took its impetus from the life work and archives of Jessica Huntley and Eric Huntley, Guyanese-born campaigners, political activists and publishers, who founded the publishing company Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications and the associated Walter Rodney Bookshop.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denzil Forrester</span> Grenadian/British artist (born 1956)

Denzil Forrester is a Grenada-born artist who moved to England as a child in 1967. Previously based in London, where he was a lecturer at Morley College, he moved to Truro, Cornwall, in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Althea McNish</span> Trinidad-born textile designer (1924–2020)

Althea McNishCM FSCD was an artist from Trinidad who became the first Black British textile designer to earn an international reputation.

Roshini Kempadoo is a British photographer, media artist, and academic. For more than 20 years she has been a lecturer and researcher in photography, digital media production, and cultural studies in a variety of educational institutions, and is currently a professor in Photography and Visual Culture at the University of Westminster.

Jennifer Weih is a Canadian artist and educator based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She currently teaches at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Weih received her BFA from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design and her MFA from the University of British Columbia. She works in installation, objects, video, and print. Her projects include a range of aesthetics including found, manufactured, or crafted materials. She is part of the production team at Other Sights for Artists' Projects. Weih was a programmer for VIVO Media Arts Centre, which she initiated community oriented projects, and founded Signal and Noise Media Art Festival.

Stella Brennan is a New Zealand artist, curator, and essayist.

Joseph Adekunle Olubo, was an artist and book illustrator active in the 1980s. He participated in some of the first art exhibitions organized by Black British artists in the United Kingdom. Olubo was one of 22 artists included in the 1983 inaugural exhibition, Heart in Exile, at The Black-Art Gallery, an art space in London which worked with artists of African and Caribbean backgrounds.

Sonia Solicari is a British curator and museum director at Museum of the Home. Solicari has been the Director of the Museum of the Home, in Hoxton, London, since January 2017. Solicari is also co-director of the Centre for Studies of Home, a partnership with Queen Mary, University of London and an international hub for research on the home, past, present and future.

References

  1. ↑ "Michael McMillan | St. Vincent – UK, Uprising Art.
  2. 1 2 3 "Artists: Michael McMillan", Peckham Platform.
  3. 1 2 3 "Michael McMillan | St. Vincent – UK", Uprising Art, 12 April 2012.
  4. ↑ "Iniva launches The Front Room website" (Press release). InIVA. 15 October 2007. Archived from the original on 10 December 2007.
  5. ↑ The Front Room interactive website.
  6. ↑ Michael McMillan, "Van Huis Uit/That’s the way we do it…!: The Living Room of Migrants in The Netherlands". Guided Talk, April 2007.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Clelia Coussonnet, "Exclusive Interview: Michael McMillan – in the framework of the exhibition Who More Sci-Fi than Us" (May 2012), Uprising Art, 2 July 2012.
  8. 1 2 "Michael McMillan reviews - Migrations: Journeys into British Art - Tate Britain 31 Jan - 12 Aug 2012" (biographical note), Wasafiri , 7 March 2012.
  9. ↑ Michael McMillan, "Oral Histories in an Ethnographic Context", Sounding Performance, November 2007.
  10. ↑ Mike Phillips, "Obituary: Len Garrison - Recording the history of black Britons for future generations", The Guardian , 28 February 2003.
  11. 1 2 "Michael McMillan", Black Plays Archive, National Theatre.
  12. 1 2 "CSM Alumnus Michael McMillan", en>route, UAL.
  13. ↑ Fellows: "Michael McMillan, Non-fiction writer, Playwright", Royal Literary Fund.
  14. ↑ "Clothes, Cloth and Culture Group: 'Saga Bwoys' and Bedouin Women", InIVA, 25 September 2014.
  15. ↑ "Associate Member, Dr Michael McMillan", PLaCE (UK).
  16. ↑ Reva Klein, "No place like home", TES, 11 May 2008.
  17. ↑ Michael McMillan, "De Mudder Tongue: Oral History Work as an Arts Practice", in Matthew Partington and Linda Sandino (eds), Oral History in the Visual Arts, A & C Black, 2013 (pp. 25–33), p. 26.
  18. ↑ Natricia Duncan, "The Caribbean Island That Changed A UK Town — How people from St Vincent and the Grenadines transformed life in High Wycombe", The Voice , 28 July 2013.
  19. 1 2 3 4 5 Michael McMillan at Doollee.com.
  20. ↑ Desrie Thomson-George, "The legacy of Black Ink", The Bookseller , 7 November 2016.
  21. ↑ "TrAIN Open Lecture: Michael McMillan | Introduced by Carol Tulloch | THE KITCHEN: MEMORY AND FOOD CULTURES ", TrAIN, May 2011.
  22. 1 2 3 "The committee", Origins of the Afro Comb.
  23. ↑ Michael McMillan, "The ‘West Indian’ Front Room: migrant aesthetics in the home", University of the West Indies, Mona.
  24. 1 2 Michael McMillan, "Home is where the art is — The front rooms of African-Caribbean immigrants to the UK are centre stage in a new book", The Guardian, 16 September 2009.
  25. ↑ Michael McMillan, "Life before IKEA"; via Karl Eklund, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines blog, 7 September 2009.
  26. ↑ "The Beauty Shop", Archives, 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning.
  27. ↑ Michael McMillan, "There's more to black theatre than plays", The Guardian, 30 September 2009.
  28. ↑ William Axtell, "Guildhall celebrates black British artists with No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action", Culture24, 9 July 2015.
  29. ↑ "Radical Readings from the Walter Rodney Bookshop at the Guildhall Art Gallery", Art Map London, September 2015.
  30. ↑ FHALMA — Events: "No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960 – 1990", Huntleys Online.
  31. ↑ "Personal Insight from Curator Michael McMillan", No Colour Bar Blogspot, 24 August 2015.
  32. ↑ "Doing Nothing Is Not An Option", Michael McMillan | Peckham Platform | 17 September – 22 November 2015.
  33. ↑ "Doing Nothing Is Not An Option", video from Peckham Platform.
  34. ↑ Michael McMillan, "The 'West Indian' Front Room: Reflections on a Diasporic Phenomenon", Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism (SX 28, Vol. 13, No. 1, March 2009) ISSN   0799-0537. Abstract, Academia/
  35. ↑ "The Front Room: Diaspora Migrant Aesthetics in the Home". Lund Humphries.
  36. ↑ "The School Leaver", Black Plays Archive, National Theatre.
  37. ↑ "On Duty", Black Plays Archive, National Theatre.
  38. ↑ "First Impressions", Black Plays Archive, National Theatre.
  39. ↑ "Last Blind Date, The", Black Plays Archive, National Theatre.
  40. ↑ "Invisible", Black Plays Archive, National Theatre.
  41. ↑ Susan Croft, "Black Playwrights in Britain in Print" (bibliography), VAM.
  42. ↑ "Brother To Brother", Black Plays Archive, National Theatre.
  43. ↑ "After Windrush", Black Plays Archive, National Theatre.
  44. ↑ "Babel Junctions", Black Plays Archive, National Theatre.
  45. ↑ "Master Juba", Black Plays Archive, National Theatre.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.