5 Things We Learned... Missy Mills
MISSY MILLS, HEAD OF INNOVATION AT TRINITY COLLEGE LONDON
LONDON, UK
Missy Mills is a Zimbabwean digital producer working at the intersection of arts, technology, and impact. Her work seeks to explore how technology can enable people to find creative expression in the arts - to be surprised and delighted.
Her work includes projects such as an AR pan-India experience, MOOCs, web, sound, and VR experiences for the Royal Opera House, the British Council, Trinity College London, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Kings College London, and Wigmore Hall.
Here are 5 Things We Learned about Missy.
What made you...you?
I grew up in Africa, in Zimbabwe, in an artistic home, where there was a lot of music, writing, and active discussion - both my parents were journalists, my father a BBC correspondent. Zimbabwe is a hugely unequal society and we grew up in a privileged home where my sister and I were challenged to think empathically – to put ourselves in the shoes of others, and this made me care passionately about equality, and finding ways to give people the opportunity for creative expressionism, however small. Shared experience, for me, is one of the greatest ways we can bond as humans, and technology presents us with an incredible tool to do so.
When are you happiest?
When I have the sun on my face, a notebook in my hand, and the opportunity to explore possibilities. I am extremely lucky to have a job I love, which allows me to travel to find new ways technology can help change peoples’ lives through art and education.
Would you rather have a muse or be a muse?
100% have a muse! I am happiest when I am learning and challenged, with a brain full of possibilities. I believe in the responsibility to help grow and mentor others, so I’m interested in the way the corporate world has morphed this into a rigid structure of hierarchal achievement. I think the internet is helping us unlearn this mentality – that we can all learn something from each other, and that growth can happen in a myriad of ways.
Who do you admire?
As a young(ish) woman in the arts and culture sector in Britain, it’s tricky not to be typecast as the weird ‘digital’ soothsayer in the corner, prophesying the apocalypse, while everyone gets on with the day job. And thus, I admire women who are able to cut through with poise and humor, to communicate a big picture message that is heard and valued. In addition to that, I really admire people who can excel and enjoy their work, have families, go to the gym, call their mothers, and have the patience to make pour-over coffee at home. I definitely cannot keep my plants alive (the cat has somehow made it thus far).
What is important?
Important to me is to listen, to learn, and to model. We are alive in such an exciting time in the history of technological development, but we also have a responsibility that doesn’t feel fully realized. The legacy of what has occurred with the advent of the Big Four tech companies, the leaps AI is making every day, mass access to mobile, the influence of social media, and tightening global community will set the mould for generations to come and it’s people like us, who work and think in the sector to speak out and demonstrate through our work. Making inclusive technology that engages, aids, demonstrates, and delights all, is for me, the absolute most important thing I can do.
Connect with Missy on LinkedIn.
Images from left to right: Missy Mills; Photo 2: This is an image I took backstage at the Royal Opera House while doing some filming for a MOOC I made with the V&A and King’s College London called Inside Opera: why does it matter?; Photo 3: Changing Spaces – This is a photo is from an AR project I did for the British Council India team. The idea of bringing past and present together through technology really sparked my imagination and this project was born; Photo 4: Exploring the future of VR in the arts and culture space; Photo 5: This is an image from a costume I tracked down, believed to have been lost or burned from an iconic 1988 production of Madam Butterfly. This costume was the inspiration for a web experience I made that explored the last 100 years of Madam Butterfly and the influence of Cio-Cio San and women like her, whose fictional shadows have evolved through decades to break free of their original moulds.