Takens-Milne’s pieces are thought-provoking invitations to engage with urgent contemporary political questions. She searches for moments of freedom from the ideological capture of dominant cultural norms. Her work draws on philosophy and psychology, with a particular focus on Lacan and Mark Fisher.

In pieces such as After Psycho (video, 2007) -  a video of a woman cleaning up the mess she has made by being murdered - she confronts the violence and drudgery of domestic misogyny and the conflict between women’s internal realities and acceptable external presentation. This is echoed in other pieces, such as Machismo (embroidery, 2022) - an embroidered screaming male face with the words ‘Your dick as a confetti cannon shooting out your own ashes’ - where she explores the impotence of extreme forms of masculinity, challenging the self-alienating expectations of gender norms. 

In pieces such as Untitled 1.1 (video 2022) - a compilation of moments in films when no people are present and no action takes place -  using the manufactured image as a metaphor for our experience within capitalist realism, she isolates moments that appear unaffected by the conceptual framework of the film, on a quest for glimpses of the Real.

As a conceptual artist, form follows concept, so Takens-Milne’s practice is multidisciplinary. However, there is conceptual cohesion across her practice, so certain media re-occur. These include film/video - both as a metaphor for consciousness, and because cinema is deeply implicated in the transmission of gender stereotypes - and textiles, specifically embroidery.  Needlepoint is synonymous with ideals of femininity and here functions as a window into the internal experience of women under patriarchy. By continuing to work in this ‘female’ discipline Takens-Milne is also communicating that women should not have to be ‘more like men’ to be considered worthy of their full personhood.

Takens-Milne’s practice is a call to philosophical contemplation and debate (in the spirit of Michael J Sandel). It demands that the viewer consider their lack of fundamental autonomy and reflect on the consequences of capitulating to ideological systems.