"[7] 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.
[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.
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".
"[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.
[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.