Black, queer, feminine artist Michaela Yearwood-Dan reflects on faith, colonial histories, memory and the radical possibilities of joy in The Practice of Liberation.
25 June 2026
For Michaela Yearwood-Dan, painting is both a deeply personal and expansive act of inquiry. Her exhibition, ‘The Practice of Liberation’, at The Whitworth, Manchester, draws together painting, ceramics, sound, and installation to examine the intersections of Blackness, queerness, femininity, spirituality, and cultural inheritance. Borrowing from the visual language of Catholicism while interrogating its colonial legacies, the exhibition transforms the gallery into a contemplative space where beauty, ritual and memory become vehicles for reflection and renewal. In conversation with ART AFRICA, Michaela discusses liberation as an ongoing practice, the influence of bell hooks and James Baldwin, and why joy, softness and care remain radical acts of resistance.
Suzette Bell-Roberts: How did organising ‘The Practice of Liberation’ deepen your perspective on freedom, care, or self-reflection?
My work has always begun with my lived experience as a Black, queer, feminine woman. This exhibition grew from years of reflecting on how my Blackness, queerness and femininity intersect, and how Christianity and culture have shaped those parts of me. It became an opportunity to examine the beliefs and structures I have tried to liberate myself from.
For me, liberation isn’t a destination; it’s an ongoing process of questioning inherited ideas, learning about myself and understanding my place in the world. Like any practice, it requires repetition. The more you return to it, the more natural it becomes, but self-reflection never really ends.
What motivated you to use Catholic Church visuals and address colonialism or institutional religion in this exhibition? How do you navigate critique and connection when referencing these histories?
I grew up attending Catholic schools and churches, so that visual language has always stayed with me. I was fascinated by the rituals, architecture and symbolism, and I still find those spaces incredibly beautiful. Every church tells the same stories through the same visual markers, and I wanted to explore that familiarity in the exhibition.
At the same time, I wanted to question how Christianity became intertwined with colonialism and systems of power. My interest isn’t in dismissing faith or spirituality; it’s in examining the institutions that shaped religion through colonial histories and how those ideas continue to influence culture today. I’m drawing on my own experiences rather than trying to speak for everyone, and that distinction felt important throughout the exhibition.
How does combining your diaristic writing with texts by writers like James Baldwin shape the relationship between your personal narrative and wider political or cultural histories in your paintings?
I’ve never really kept a written diary, but I realised my paintings had become one. They contain fragments of what I was thinking about personally, alongside reflections on the world around me. Some text is obvious, while other passages are hidden or only partly visible, much like the different layers of ourselves that people come to know over time.
James Baldwin helped me think about identity as something shaped by context. His writing about race, queerness and belonging showed how perception changes depending on where we are and the societies we move through. That resonated deeply with me, because my work is always trying to bring together personal experience and broader political histories.
What did referencing the Stations of the Cross allow you to explore about suffering and devotion through abstraction and image-making?
The Stations of the Cross became a conceptual framework rather than something I wanted to illustrate directly. I was interested in their rhythm, repetition and symbolism, and how those ideas could be translated through abstraction. References to Christ’s three falls, the Trinity, the stigmata and Christian numerology appear throughout the installation in different ways.
I also drew on the story of the Wedding at Cana through six ceramic vessels, connecting biblical narratives with West African cultural references. Rather than retelling religious stories, I wanted to use their symbolism to think about suffering, transformation, devotion and liberation through a contemporary lens.
Why is creating an immersive environment with painting, ceramics, sound, and installation important to the audience experience?
I wanted the exhibition to feel like a sanctuary. The warm walls, candle-like atmosphere, dried flowers, benches and sound installation all draw on memories of church spaces, but without recreating the aspects of organised religion that can feel intimidating or exclusionary.
The sound work and quieter areas of the installation encourage people to slow down and spend time with themselves as much as with the artworks. I wanted visitors to experience the space as a place for reflection, rest and contemplation, rather than simply moving quickly from one painting to the next.
How do memory, ritual, and cultural inheritance inform your material and form choices, such as ceramic vessels referencing Cana or Ghanaian bolga baskets?
Memory became one of my most important research tools because it let me approach these subjects through lived experience. When I returned from Ghana with bolga baskets and reshaped them using warm water, I was struck by how similar that process felt to working with clay. That experience informed the ceramic vessels in the exhibition.
I was also interested in challenging the distinction between craft and fine art. Objects like bolga baskets carry histories, cultural knowledge and practical function simultaneously. Bringing those references together with biblical narratives allowed me to think about colonial histories, cultural inheritance and the resilience within material traditions.
What does it mean for you to centre joy, beauty, and softness as forms of resistance in current dialogues about liberation and healing?
At a time when so many marginalised communities are under pressure, choosing joy can itself be a form of resistance. Anger is important, but it can’t be the only way we respond to the world. We also deserve spaces to rest, reflect and experience beauty.
As a Black, queer, feminine woman, churches have not always felt like spaces that celebrate people like me. I wanted to imagine what that environment might feel like if it genuinely belonged to everyone. For me, beauty and softness create care, belonging and healing without ignoring the realities people continue to face.
How have bell hooks’s ideas on love, freedom, and community influenced your approach to art-making and its societal role?
bell hooks gave me a language for ideas I was already beginning to explore. Her writing encouraged me to think about love as an active practice and freedom as something that begins with questioning inherited ideas rather than accepting them unquestioningly.
That way of thinking has influenced both my life and my studio practice. Whether I’m making a painting or reflecting on my own experiences, I’m interested in asking questions rather than arriving at fixed answers. I hope the work gives people space to do the same—to reflect, connect and imagine different possibilities for themselves and the communities they belong to.
The exhibition is on view at the Whitworth, Manchester, until 18 October 2026
