We are not Therapists

We Are Not Therapists! emerged from a three-month artist residency led by McMillan (November 2012 – January 2013) working with a group of fourteen BA Fine Art students at Wimbledon College of Art (University of the Arts London) that used his installation-based exhibition The Beauty Shop as a stimulus. Students were asked to bring in an object that they could share a story about that reflected the material culture of their personal beautification regimes or body image issues. Given the intimate and confidential nature of their stories it was important that they felt safe in the workshop, and trusted the creative process.

Their stories covered a range of issues including the fear of going outside without makeup; feeling inadequate as a young man because of their pectoral muscles weren’t large enough; bulimia nervosa eating order in response to social anxiety; relationships to hair becoming a young mother; and identity in terms of Black hair texture and having ginger hair. Students used their individual stories to develop mixed-media installations, video art, durational time-based and performance-based pieces as part of group exhibition We Are Not Therapists! in the Theatre space at Wimbledon College of Art, January 2013

The students in the show included: Peter Bellamy, Asma Chand, Helga Fannon, Siu Ting Hung ëSummerí, Rebecca Johnson, Liisi Kula, Bianca Sequeira Martin, Jessie Louise Mckenzie, Katharine Anne Muntzer, Rosa Nussbaum, Kate Sibley, Ieuan Solanki, Therina Soupionas and Jed Marc Wrobel

Their work was subsequently reproduced in a small publication We Are Not Therapists! that McMillan edited, and included a CD of audio interviews with students about their experience of the project.