Through public art collaborations across Minnesota, Moira Villiard (pronounced "Miri") is a multidisciplinary artist with a mixed Indigenous and settler heritage who uses art to uplift underrepresented narratives, explore the nuance of society’s historical community intersections, and promote community healing spaces. The outputs of her work include murals, community spaces and programming, exhibits, installations, animated light projections, film, and digital design. 

 

Moira grew up on the Fond du Lac Reservation in Cloquet, MN and is a Fond du Lac direct descendent. For three years she worked as the Arts & Cultural Programming Coordinator for the American Indian Community Housing Organization (AICHO), the place where she had her first art exhibition at 18 years old. She currently works as a freelance consultant, designer, speaker, and grant-writer and is the lead artist behind organizing the Chief Buffalo Memorial Mural site in Duluth. Her educational, activism-rooted exhibits "Rights of the Child" and "Waiting for Beds" are currently on tour, and recently she's taken steps to launch a nonprofit called Aanjichigeng, which aims to maintain and protect the site of the Chief Buffalo Memorial while also uplifting Native artists and culture bearers in Northeastern Minnesota.

 

In 2021 she debuted her first animated work for Illuminate the Lock, a 10 minute, 150’ projection piece titled “Madweyaashkaa: Waves Can Be Heard”, and has since collaborated with Indigenous musicians and writers to create animations for "A Winter Love", "Mináǧi Kiŋ Dowáŋ: A ZitkálaŠá Opera", "Jonathan Thunder: Good Mythology" (PBS American Masters), and "Extraction" (poem by Tanaya Winder), among other films.

 

Her work has been featured in numerous shows in Duluth and around Minnesota, including her solo show, “Rights of the Child” at Zeitgeist, and group shows “Beyond Borders” at MacRostie Arts Center and “We the People” at the Minnesota Museum of American Art. She received her Bachelor's Degree in Communicating Arts (Global Studies Minor) from the University of Wisconsin-Superior in 2016 and an Associate of Liberal Arts degree from Fond du Lac Tribal & Community College. Moira Villiard is a recipient of a 2022/23 MCAD–Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Early Career Artists, administered by the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and funded by the Jerome Foundation. She is also a 2023 McKnight Foundation Community-Engaged Practice Artist Fellow.