Michael McMillan is a writer, artist/curator, academic of Vincentian migrant heritage whose plays/performance pieces include: a new translation of Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Sezuan set in Jamaica 1980 (MAT 2010), Master Juba (2006), Babel Junction (2006), Blood for Britain (BBC Radio 4 Drama 2001), I hope it’s not a Black Man (1996), Brother to Brother (1996), Invisible (1993), Portrait of a Shopping Centre as a Cathedral (1990), First Impressions (1988), On Duty (Channel 4 1984), Hard Time Pressure (1980) and The School Leaver (1978).
As an artist/curator his critically acclaimed The West Indian Front Room installation/exhibition (Geffrye Museum 2005-06) lead to international commissions: Van Huis Uit: The Living Room of Migrants in the Netherlands (Imagine IC, Amsterdam 2007 and Holland tour - 2008) and A Living Room surrounded by Salt (IBB, Curaco 2008), the BBC4 documentary Tales from the Front Room (2007), The Front Room: Migrant Aesthetics in the Home (Black Dog Publishing 2009), an interactive website: www.thefrontroom.org.uk and the focus of his Arts Doctorate from Middlesex University (2010).
Other work includes:
His most recent installation I Miss My Mum’s Cooking (Who More Sci-Fi Than Us - KadE Kunsthal, Amersfoort, Netherlands 2012) is a mediation on memory, loss and sensory experience in the context of Caribbean migrant food culture that uses the material culture of his late mother.
His books include: The Waiting Room: An audio-visual tale of an artist in residence at the Alaw Ward (Cancer & Palliative Care Unit) in Ysbyty Gwynedd & Rheumatology Clinics in Ysbyty Gwynedd and Ysbyty Llandudno (2012), Same Difference: 25 Years of International Youth Volunteering with the Daneford Trust (2006), Growing Up Is Hard To Do: A Book For Young People & Adults About Sexual Health (2000), If I Could Fly: An anthology of writings from young men at Orchard Lodge Resource Centre (Southwark Social Services 1998), The Black Boy Pub & Other Stories: the black experience in High Wycombe (1997) Living Proof: Views of a World living with HIV/AIDS (1992), Words, Sounds & Power Anthology - editor (Centerprise Publishing Project 1988)
He also several essays and articles published in numberous national and international journals, publications, magazines and newspapers. He has presented papers at conferences and symposiums in the UK, Europe, Canada, USA, Caribbean and Brazil including Keynote speaker at Islands in Between Conference on Language, Literature & History of the Eastern Caribbean (Univ. of the West Indies, School of Continuing Studies, St. Vincent & the Grenadines 2006). He has also made presentations on The Front Room for the Visual Culture Center (Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison 2009), Communication & Culture Faculty, (Clark Univ., Worcester 2009) AND The Faculity of African American Studies (NorthWestern Univ., Chicago 2008).
