How Cotton Became King

This immersive multi-media installation was a meditation on the role cotton played in plantation slavery, colonialism, revolution, the industrial revolution and the emergence of capitalism. Cotton’s legacy comes through globalisation, cheapened labour, environmental damage, and mixed with indigo to make fashionable Levi 501 denim jeans.   

How Cotton Became King was part of the group exhibition, Material World in the Victorian built Temperate House at Kew Gardens (20th September - 2nd November 2025).

How Cotton Became King was located in the Africa section of the Temperate House, where a layered soundscape came from eight partially hidden speakers. Created by Dubmorphology (Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison), the 30min audio piece included poems written and recorded by McMillan: King Cotton, Unmarked Graves, Dead White Men’s Clothes and Frequencies of Indigo that drew and expanded on his filmed poem King Cotton, from Everybody Deserves Space, Ruskin's Manchester Now (2022).

Poem transcripts (Kew Gardens)

And suspended from the ceiling were three large posters printed on organic cotton fabric that featured archive images including Mahatma Gandhi meeting women textile workers in Darwen, Lancashire, September 1931, and extracts from McMillan’s series of poems.

Poem poster: King Cotton, Michael McMillan

Poem poster: Unmarked Graves, Michael McMillan

Poem poster Dead White Men’s Clothes, Michael McMillan