“What we want is to connect with people”: Tim Mills and his socially engaged work

Tim Mills is an artist, curator, and producer based in Birmingham. He has worked with communities within an arts and heritage context since 2009, using photography and collections to explore individual and collective histories of people and place. In this interview with Will Whatley, Liverpool based photographer and a current student of our MA Socially Engaged Photography course, they discuss building trust while working on a project, the importance of art in public space, engaging with the archives and other aspects of socially engaged work.

Will Whatley: Tim, would you like to briefly introduce yourself and tell us about your work?

I am an artist, curator, and producer based in Birmingham. Sometimes I might be the artist. Sometimes I am the artist and the curator, and occasionally I am the artist, curator and producer. Ideally, I’d be all those things on my own terms. The artist part is about generating ideas and how to conceptualise those ideas. The curator role traditionally would be a keeper of a collection. I work a lot with archives, so it might be caring for and nurturing a collection, but equally it’s about caring for a community, an individual and a project at large. Then the producer part is all about problem solving and how to make things work. The optimum outcome is where all these disciplines align. In many ways, they are one and the same thing in my mind. 

WW: So, on your own terms, does that imply you have an end goal in mind from the get-go, and you want to get there, or is it freer flowing when you’re working on a project?

TM: It’s about lots of things really, but I think it’s mostly about trust. Ideally you would work with a commissioner who trusts you to do the things that you do, and that trust extends to all sorts of areas. Trust is super important in the work that we make, particularly the reciprocal trust of the communities and people involved in the work. It’s also about a creative freedom and being able to make choices and decisions, because you’re always working within – to an extent – the confines of an organisation and funders, but also the needs and wishes of participants. It’s about sticking to your guns and trusting the process, then hoping it all lands. 

Trust is super important in the work that we make, particularly the reciprocal trust of the communities and people involved in the work.

WW:  Taking a look at your most recent project Backing the Blues, the installation toured as well and went to a few specific local areas, where the work was tailored to that site. What do you hope that visitors and audiences will gain from seeing local projects like this in their area? 

TM: My preference would always be to display the outcomes, whatever they may be, in public space. I just find that infinitely more interesting. I find it more exciting. There’s a kind of jeopardy to it. In the case of Backing the Blues, I liked the idea of creating these punctuations in daily life that are somewhat unexpected. As someone who is very habitual and routine based, when that’s broken it does something, it changes perception, however fleeting, and that’s quite interesting. It’s often a lot harder to do those kinds of things than it is to show work in a gallery, because galleries are contained somewhat, and quite sanitised spaces. So, by placing work in public space, it’s more challenging, which I enjoy, but crucially, it’s more democratic. 

Concept, content and context. They’re the three things that I think about when making work. Take the Michael Knighton series of installations at the King’s Head pub for example, that project was inspired by a photograph from 1995 when Carlisle won the third division championship. Somebody had written on a bed sheet “KNIGHTON THE NEXT KING OF ENGLAND”. I just loved that image. And it seemed quite a simple decision to make; that image could and should go in the King’s Head pub. 

There are two images of Knighton in the archive with his lips to the trophy in the changing room, revelling in the spoils of battle, like a King might. I thought, wouldn’t that be quite interesting to turn into the pub sign. In the end, we chose the image with a player using his fingers as ‘bunny ears’ behind Knighton’s head. He was kind of revered and despised in equal measure by the Carlisle supporters during his ten years as Chairman. Knighton, in all his pomp, is blissfully unaware of the ‘bunny ears’, so that image pleases the Knighton apologists, but also those who have an issue with him. We also thought, let’s play around with the staff polo shirt.

WW: With the picture on the uniform.

TM: Yeah, the embroidered portrait on the polo shirt. Instead of King Charles II wearing a ruff, it’s an image of Knighton from a press conference with his polka dot tie. These interventions were all different ways of using archive material in a site-specific context, to engage an audience that perhaps wouldn’t necessarily be interested in football, or interested in photography, or dare I say, art. You must trust your judgement and make peace with all those decisions at the time. I think it works.

WW: And how do you approach working with a community whose experiences you may not personally share?

TM: With Backing the Blues, even though I love football, I didn’t really know anything about Carlisle United. But I do know how to work with archives, I know how to work with people, and I have a methodology for practice that has proved successful in other projects. 

I worked with The Carlisle United Heritage Group, a collective of retirees and lifelong Carlisle Supporters. I don’t have any knowledge of the club, but they do, and that’s where the magic happens. It was a very authentic means of collaboration whereby we discussed together, for example, what are the key themes? What do you think is important to say? And then I would bring ideas to them, and we would discuss, refine, and so on. What kept cropping up was ideas of belonging, belief, identity and place. As a means of engaging audiences beyond sport, the exhibition at Tullie used football as a conduit to explore life and human experience. 8,000 people visited the show during the four-month run, with over 50,000 people engaging with the city-wide installations. 

I don’t have any knowledge of the club, but they do, and that’s where the magic happens.

WW: I’ve noticed that when you’re collaborating with groups and communities, your collaboration goes right up to the making of a final product sometimes. There was a flag maker in Backing the Blues, and then a tailor in another project, The Burges. Could you talk through how that process – finding people in the local area who can contribute to a project – works?

TM: The Burges was a commission with Historic England, Photoworks and Grain Projects in 2021. I was selected via an open call, which I was slightly surprised about but super thrilled to have been awarded. This was the first opportunity to make new work for myself in a long time. It was a one-year commission exploring an area of Coventry called The Burges, and the commission brief was to work with communities to create a contemporary portrait of the area, with those outcomes becoming part of the Historic England collection. It was a way for me to explore how far I can push what socially engaged practice might be, or certainly what it might be in my own mind.

We were required to undertake workshops, and I sort of have an issue with the whole concept of workshops. Sometimes when you say ‘workshop’ to someone, frankly, it sounds like work. So, it meant exploring different ways to determine what a workshop might be. For example, I worked with taxi drivers, and I decided the workshop would be a kind of speed dating exercise over many weeks. I stood at the head of the taxi rank, had a conversation with the driver, who would then pick up a fare at some point and drive off. Then the next driver would come to the head of the rank, and I would have a conversation with them. Eventually, the driver I spoke to half an hour ago would be at the head of the rank again. And so on.

Everyone’s got a different way of doing these things, based on the way you see the world, your ethics and so forth. I kept asking myself how we can use the skills and expertise of the businesses on the street to co-create the works.

I kept asking myself how we can use the skills and expertise of the businesses on the street to co-create the works.

I was really interested in exploring the industries that defined the city of the past and those that shape it today. For example, ribbon weaving was Coventry’s main industry from the early 1700s to the 1860s, and the city’s contemporary industry is the University. I thought it would be interesting to photograph students on moving-in-day at the halls of residence on The Burges. You have bags and boxes of belongings that sort of define who you are. It’s a big moment for the child – that point where you’re transitioning from a child to an independent young adult – it’s also a big moment for the parent too. 

And that’s where the ribbon makers come in. I was interested in the little name tags that were stitched into your school clothes, and there’s one ribbon weaving company remaining in Coventry called J&J Cash. So, J&J Cash made silk woven name tags for each of the students photographed, and Sina Darvish from Godiva Tailoring on The Burges stitched those name tags onto the surface of the prints. I liked having them stitched right onto the image because normally, the image surface is almost scared, nothing should touch it. Then I decided to put the images in gold trimmed strut frames. They’re slightly grotesque, and they’re often brown. I don’t know why they’re brown. But they reminded me of the ‘first day at school’ pictures created when entering primary school that are dished out to your family. 

I also collaborated with a secondary school in Coventry, called the Sidney Stringer Academy. I was quite interested in the photographs that are used to demonstrate haircut styles at the barber shops on The Burges, so during a talk I gave at the school, I suggested to the students: ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if I got my hair cut like that?’ And someone said: ‘Yeah. Well, you should’. 

So, we talked through options. They decided on a shaved head, with trams lines down the side. We negotiated, because, you know, this is a collaborative process, right? I’m not going for loads of lines; I went for one line. I visited Sky Barber, and Debo (the barber) sculpted my hair and then he took a picture of me with the finished haircut. We made that image into a circle and placed it on the front of the building, to sit alongside the other haircuts you might have. But, of course, you won’t, because they’re stock images that exist in pretty much every barber shop. I liked the idea that this is probably the most authentic example of the haircut you could receive at Sky Barber because it was created there. Three years on, and the image remains on the shop frontage. 

There was a requirement by Historic England to document the workshops that I was undertaking. So, I decided to engage with every offer of goods and service on the street. I ate at McDonalds; I had a pint of Guinness; I had a manicure; I bought a new watch battery; I bought a replacement phone charger; I purchased a lottery ticket; I placed a bet; and I recreated a suit fitting (in the same suit) at the former Hammons Tailors (now Kong Clothing) where my dad purchased his velvet wedding suit in 1972. 

I decided to engage with every offer of goods and service on the street. I ate at McDonalds; I had a pint of Guinness; I had a manicure; I bought a new watch battery; I bought a replacement phone charger; I purchased a lottery ticket; I placed a bet; and I recreated a suit fitting.

I would have a conversation with each shop keeper and then ask them to take a picture of me engaged in the transaction, using a second hand DSLR purchased from the local branch of Cash Generator (I then sold it back to them after the project). The resulting images are both a document of a workshop and an outcome produced by a participant. 

WW: I like your take on workshops! What would you suggest to myself, and other aspiring socially engaged practitioners, who may be thinking about how they can engage within a community without sticking to traditional ideas of a workshop?

TM: I would ask: what do we hope to get from a workshop? I suppose, what we want is to connect with people. We want to have conversations, and we want to generate ideas. We want to share ideas and skills, and, over the course of weeks or months, those ideas and skills would evolve, trust is built and your relationships grow. 

Sometimes it does work to sit around a table with a big piece of paper and start writing things, which of course is much easier said than done. Snacks are important as well. But I would never expect people to come to me; you must go to them. 

What we want is to connect with people. We want to have conversations, and we want to generate ideas. We want to share ideas and skills.

With Backing the Blues for example, working with The Carlisle United Heritage Group, my role was to support them in delivering this heritage project, but also to equip them with relevant skills to run this project by themselves, which is what they’re doing now. During ‘workshops’ together, we built their confidence with the handling and cataloguing of archives, we explored curatorial and production techniques, and public speaking methods enabling them to deliver gallery tours and give press interviews. They won ‘Community Project of the Year’ at the Sporting Heritage Awards last month, which is amazing.

WW: Have you always been a curator alongside an artist and a producer, or is curating something that you’ve – not fallen into – but taken on recently? 

TM: Over the last couple of months, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. So, for example, since 2018 my job titles have included Producer for The Atlantic Project (a pilot for an international festival of contemporary art in the Southwest of England); Contemporary Art Curator at The Box Plymouth; Offsite Curator at Eastside Projects and Assistant Curator at Tullie. These are contemporary art positions working with high end, international artists on major projects, gallery installations and works in the public realm.

I am not trained as a curator, I’ve kind of fallen into these positions. In many ways, I reflect on these experiences as an extension of a post-graduate degree, I learnt a tremendous amount in these roles. What I’ve tried to do is take all the things I love about contemporary art and what I think is important for the projects I like to make. For example, high quality work, high productions values, and displays in public contexts. 

Growing up, we didn’t go to contemporary art galleries, but we did go to regional museums and spend time in community settings, and I feel more comfortable in these spaces; that’s where I like to be. 

WW: Where do you see yourself going to next?

TM: I am currently working with the NHS in Birmingham to curate the project One Hundred and Ten Years of Hospitals, Heritage, Healthcare and Healing. I am making my way through a large medical archive, in collaboration with current and former staff and patients, to create an exhibition in the ‘People’s Gallery’ at the new Midland Metropolitan University Hospital. I have not worked within a healthcare context before, so this feels like an exciting opportunity to add additional strings to my bow. 

The Burges and Backing the Blues felt like the perfect models for how I want to create projects, so I am bringing these approaches to the hospital to find new ways of communicating medical history. I would also like to continue working with football and football supporters. I am currently developing a project here in Birmingham that builds on my work in Carlisle but on a much greater scale. I am not quite sure where I see myself going, but what I hope to do is continue working with people to create fun, playful and meaningful experiences with photography, collections and communities.