Michaela Coel

Words and handkerchief by Oriana Wilmott

To call Michaela Coel multi-talented seems inadequate. She has won many awards for writing, directing, producing and acting. She describes herself as a storyteller, and it was the story she created for TV, I May Destroy You, which makes her my sexual hero. In it she gave multiple voices to young Londoners growing up in a world in which issues of sex and consent are becoming increasingly complex. The work addressed race, class, gender and power, and bravely examined her own experience of rape with transparency, honesty, nuance, a lot of humour and, ultimately, hope. It gave me, a white woman in my fifties with a Black daughter in her twenties, a way into learning about the current sexual and dating landscape, the conflicts and dangers as well as the opportunities for free expression that my daughter is facing daily. 

The falcon and the moth I have included in the embroidery are metaphors from Michaela’s book Misfits, adapted from her extraordinary MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh Festival in 2018. Michaela writes of seeing herself and her friends as falcons, flying above their London tower blocks, unable to carry all the weight of society’s ideas and expectations, and so dropping their dreams to be trampled like chewing gum below. The moth is a running metaphor through the book, coming to represent her letting go of coping and avoiding mechanisms, and allowing herself to face the darker side of her experience and speak of it truthfully, which ultimately gave us I May Destroy You.

Thank you Michaela.

This artwork is part of The Wall of Sexual Heroes, a collaborative textile art piece featured in our previous exhibition at the Horse Hospital (2022) and Bow Arts Lab (2023). All embroidered, printed and appliquėd handkerchiefs celebrate unsung heroes of sexual emancipation, activism and innovation.

The Wall is an organic work. If you would like to contribute, please get in touch with The Keeper. 


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