Dr Kate McMillan is a Reader in Creative Practice and Deputy Head of the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries. Her research engages with histories connected to colonial violence and women’s knowledges, as well as inequalities in the contemporary art world. Her art practice is often site-specific and engages with the residue of empire using film, performance, sound and sculpture. She has been included in exhibitions, festivals and biennales around the world over her thirty-year career. She was the annual author of ‘Representation of Female Artists in Britain’, as well as various other academic publications that consider gender inequality in the visual arts and feminist arts-based research methods. McMillan’s monograph (2019), published by Palgrave Macmillan, ‘Contemporary Art & Unforgetting in Colonial Landscapes: Islands of Empire’ investigated female artists in the global south and the ways their practices defy colonial amnesia. She sits on the Advisory Committee of the Science Gallery and is a member of the College's High Risk Ethics Committee.

Research interests and PhD supervision

McMillan's supervision expertise aligns with her own research in the visual arts which includes interests in gender inequality, the residue of colonialism, arts-based research methods and social justice. She has supervised PhDs on:

• Gender Inequality in the Art World
• Arts Based Research Methods and Creative Practice
• Art & Craft practices in the Global South
• Memory, Identity and Contemporary Art

Teaching

McMillan convenes and lectures on specialist contemporary art modules, as well as gender inequality in the CCIs. She oversees arts-based research methods in the department.

Expertise and public engagement

McMillan is a regular public speaker on gender inequality in the art world. She has been interviewed for various television networks and documentaries on the art world, as well as an expert contributor to the industry.

Selected publications

• McMillan, K. (2023). Listening with Our Feet: Decolonial and Feminist Arts-Based Methodologies in Addressing Australian Incarceration Policies on Nauru and Manus Islands. In: Fuggle, S., Forsdick, C., Massing, K. (eds) Framing the Penal Colony. Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
• McMillan, K., & England, L. (2022). Gendered Obstacles in Contemporary Art: The Art Market, Motherhood and Invisible Ecologies. Journal of Gender, Culture and Society, 2(2), 24–38.
• McMillan, K. (2022). A Woman’s Work: Why is the National Gallery of Australia’s Gender Equity Action Plan necessary? In J. Higgie (Ed.), The Annual (1 ed., Vol. 1, pp. 29-35). National Gallery of Australia.
• McMillan, K. (2021). Contextualising the Statistical Landscape: Revisioning Cultural Ecologies of Care. In R. Morris, & C. Bertola (Eds.), A-N Artists Newsletter (2 ed., Vol. 2, pp. 4-9). a-n The Artist Information Company.
• McMillan, K. (2021). Representation of Women Artists in Britain 2020. In Representation of Women Artists in Britain 2020 Freelands Foundation, 86 p.