Madweyaashkaa:
The Waves Can Be Heard
On Tour 2021
An image of the Grandmother moon (Nokomis), fire, earth, water, and the jingle dress dance entwined in swirling colors, Madweyaashkaa celebrates the resilience of Indigenous women on a spectacular scale.
Madweyaashkaa: Waves Can Be Heard in Duluth
June 17, 18 and 19
9:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. each night
Free, family friendly and open to the public
@ Washington Rec Center
310 N 1st Ave W, Duluth MN
Event sponsored by Duluth Public Arts and Commission and the City of Duluth
Please email Moira Villiard for booking inquiries.
About the Project
“I’ve really just been honored to work with so many wonderful folks to bring this immersive experience to life, especially during such a chaotic personal and societal moment in time.”
Madweyaashkaa: Waves Can Be Heard made its debut in February 2021 on the 49-foot tall chamber of the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam. Spectators came together and celebrated the resilience of Indigenous women on a spectacular scale. An animation projected onto the 400 x 49 foot wall of the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam was synced with a soundscape featuring music by Lyz Jaakola (Fond du Lac Band of Ojibwe) and a recorded narrative by Dakota/Ojibway First Nation elder Millie Richard. Listen to a full interview on Indigeneity Rising with Roy Taylor here.
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Viewers will also find small video projections with flickers of imagery from the main video distributed around the lock.
With images of the Grandmother moon (Nokomis), fire, earth, water, and the jingle dress dance entwined in swirling colors, the piece will explore themes of homecoming and finding connection within ourselves to culture, to ancestors, and to nature, no matter how far away we may sometimes feel. From an Ojibwe perspective, it is as a reminder that Nokomis is always around, an elder always ready for us to reach out and willing to hear what’s in our hearts.
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"This is my first creation using animation as the main medium, and it’s really wild and humbling to think that it’s going to debut on such a large and public surface. I’ve really just been honored to work with so many wonderful folks to bring this immersive experience to life, especially during such a chaotic personal and societal moment in time. I sincerely hope the piece literally illuminates a message of hope and clarity for whomever needs to hear it." - Moira Villiard
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Script by Millie Richard:
Resilience, for a native woman in 2020, living in a urban concrete jungle, what does that look like? Well, in a pandemic, you're made to stay at home, isolated. More so when you have a compromising illness. What does resilience look like in a situation like that?
Resilience is going to the sacred tobacco, believing in your prayers, and offering your tobacco and setting it down on our mother earth, asking Creator of all good things, to help and guide our day. Because for some, we've been in isolation since the whole 2020 and we have not been able to go out as much as others as who don't have a compromising illness.
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Tribal women living in an urban setting in 2020, feeling very disconnected... thinking about resilience, a comeback onto the situation, where there is so much changes happening in the world. One - the security and safety of our own lives, and the lives of our loved ones. Where do we go from here? Feeling that disconnection .. thinking about our resilience, back to a better order of living.
To help us with the disconnection, it will help us to go to mother earth. In an urban setting, mother earth is not seen as much, because she has only become small patches in the checker board of concrete jungle, laid out all over in and around us. Water, water is easy to find in some places. Hard to find in others. Yet when we pray to that water, that water will help us with our disconnection, our healing, and to see clarity on a good comeback from whatever situation this 2020 pandemic has put us urban tribal people in.
This connection can happen when you acknowledge full moon, once a month, when you give her tobacco and offerings, to our grandmother moon. She watches over us during the night. During the day, grandfather sun watches over us. This connection and resilience is a way to wake up and watch grandpa sun rise up over the horizon, and we give out our tobacco to both grandpa and grandma moon, who now has journeyed to the other side of the world.
This connection, resilience, finding a way back, can only be of a good way, if we re-go back and start praying, start doing our tobacco offering, start praying for our water, and start praying for ourselves. Water is the life blood of mother earth, and as tribal native women, this is our connection. When we are lost, disconnected, and don't have a comeback like resilience in these times where a lot of us have no income, we're out there trying to find a different way to feed clothe, and shelter, going back to mother earth, the creator, father sky, grandmother moon, grandfather sun, all these will help us reconnection.
Not feeling lost, but feeling a clear path ahead of us, a spiritual tribal women ... we are the heads of our family units. We are the backbone of our nations. We are the heart of our people, our children, our elders. Let's reconnect today. Pick up your tobacco tomorrow morning, light your smudge, and invite mother earth, creator, father sky, grandmother moon, grandfather sun, into our lives. That is a way to deal with your loss. That is a way to deal with your inner peace, serenity. That is a way of reconnecting and having a strong resilience for a comeback on a better way of life.
Background
ABOUT THE MISSISSIPPI NATIONAL RIVER AND RECREATION AREA
In 1988, a National Park was created to enhance the significant values of the waters and land of the Mississippi River corridor within the Twin Cities metropolitan area. Known as the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, the park extends for more than 70 miles along the river, running directly through a metropolitan area (the park corridor begins in Ramsey and Dayton and ends just south of Hastings). The park provides leadership, acting as a facilitator and coordinator, in promoting a common vision for river corridor management among 25 municipalities and numerous partner agencies and organizations, whose responsibilities intersect. Learn more at nps.gov/miss.
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ABOUT MISSISSIPPI PARK CONNECTION
Mississippi Park Connection is the charitable, nonprofit partner of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area. Its mission is to strengthen the enduring connection between people and the Mississippi River by enriching the life of the river and the lives of all who experience our national park.
Mississippi Park Connection works with partner community groups and individuals across the Twin Cities to create meaningful and exciting experiences at the river. Learn more at parkconnection.org
ABOUT ALL MY RELATIONS ARTS
All My Relations Arts is an initiative of NACDI (Native American Community Development Institute), an intermediary organization that envisions a community in which all American Indian people have a place, purpose, and a future strengthened by sustainable community development.
All My Relations Arts presents the work of American Indian contemporary artists and fills a critical space in the Twin Cities arts community, providing high-quality gallery space and consistently recognized shows that raise up Native arts from this region and provide access for Native artists. As well as hosting/ co-presenting events in the community to bring arts practices to youth and elders and all through creations of murals, art cars, through classes, tours, artists talks, and more. Learn more at http://www.allmyrelationsarts.com/
ABOUT NORTHERN LIGHTS.MN
Northern Lights.mn supports artists in the creation and presentation of art in the public sphere, focusing on innovative uses of technology to imagine new interactions between audience, artwork and place and to explore expanded possibilities for civic engagement. Learn more at northern.lights.mn
Social Media
Press Relating to Project
Project Contributors
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Moira Villiard is a self-taught, dynamic visual artist, Fond du Lac Band of Ojibwe direct descendent, and current Minnesota-based community organizer.
Additional artist credits: Sound effects and audio production by JayGee of DanSan Creatives. Hand drum and vocals by Lyz Jaakola. Projection and process mentoring by Jonathan Thunder.
Madweyaashkaa is presented as part of Bring Her Home: Sacred Womxn of Resistance, an annual exhibition at All My Relations Arts gallery that invites Indigenous artists to reflect on the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
This project is a partnership with All My Relations Arts, a program of Native American Community Development Institute (NACDI), Northern Lights.mn, Mississippi Park Connection and Mississippi National River and Recreation Area and is supported through a grant from the St. Anthony Falls Heritage Board.
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