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A Camping Tale

MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts, May 25, 2019

The performance runs approximately 10 minutes

Simple props and a costume that evolves with the performance illustrate the harrowing campfire story of being discovered alone and defenseless in the woods by a wild boar.

January 2021 

This video mixes disparate eras, color palettes, and media for a video combining drag performance and animation. Hydria Aria is a rumination on Covid Era loneliness and the role of queer romantic fantasy in this period. This piece features a stage with Austrian curtains that the performer can draw. Female characters on a Greek hydria come to life to engage in a romantic dalliance. Amazon, Etsy, and Volvo used Mozart’s “Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen,” the soundtrack for this piece, out of context for commercials in 2019 and 2020.

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House Party: A Parade to Find Home

Tribeca Neighborhood, New York, New York, May 12, 2017

Parade ran approximately 40 min

A wanderer’s sanctuary resides in memory. This New Orleans-style parade featured a menagerie of the artist’s most cherished buildings from across the globe and a marching band. Participants were chosen for their significance in the artist’s life. Parading began at the Hudson waterfront in New York City. It proceeded through Tribeca before culminating in a gallery where the house hats danced to respective installation spots one by one. The installation featured each building paired with a story explaining its significance. By turning architectural memory into a mask, the procession carried a peripatetic vision of home.

Costume tells three concentric stories at once—the first is a visualization of one's inner world--their psychological state and personal values. Zooming out from that perspective, we gain a sense of someone's community--their cultural roots, interests, and local place of belonging. Finally, we can place them on a timeline of humanity, understanding the immutable circumstances of their place in history. Costuming in public creates a liminal space that can cut through these visual signifiers and subvert them. The photos on this page represent some of my costuming for public events and cultural celebrations. Extending costuming beyond the stage and into real life is an essential part of my practice that informs and inspires my private and professional work.

-Aed McMillian

The Wassaic Project, Wassaic, New York, May 12, 2018

Performance video still. The performance ran approximately 40min

This parade commemorates the completion of a hamlet’s spring celebration—when festivities are finished, and the townspeople are full of sweets and too tired to clean up the mess. This project was created, especially for Wassaic Community Day: 50 masks, 50 bug flags, two pie filling costumes, six pie filling hats, three flower hats, ten kids flower ponchos, 2 melting ice cream costumes, and three mini-floats.

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Pounding Branch

Lit Gallery, Chattanooga, Tennessee, April 12-27, 2018

Site-specific installation. 10’8” deep x 12’ wide x 12’ tall (triangular base) diorama

Fairytales served as a balm to Frieda Carter’s homesickness for her native Germany. Her brainchild, a collection of dioramas depicting Grimm’s classics, opened in 1955. The sculptural masterpiece, Fairyland Caverns, can still be found at Rock City in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Looking to commemorate a local fairytale harkening to her complicated feelings regarding an upbringing in the Tennessee Valley, the artist chose to illustrate the story of the milksnake. The wive’s tale features a serpent who would steal milk right from a cow’s teat. Pounding Branch is a site-specific installation illustrating the moment a farmer would string the milksnake from porch rafters to reclaim the prized lactation.

This installation was funded by a Chattanooga Artists Work Grant. A mask workshop for the community (pictured) accompanied this installation.

Rubulad Arts Space, 2017, Brooklyn, NY

This drag performance anthropomorphizes a collared shirt and sweater as it sings along to Weezer’s 1992 hit, “Undone--Sweater Song.” ​The costumes of Leigh Bowery, Twin Peaks’ Double R Diner waitress costumes, and the performance of stage fright inspire The Sweater Song​. This piece exemplifies a belief held by Bowery and Bauhaus master Oskar Schlemmer--the outfit defines the roles of performer and audience.