By Melanie Pankau on May 01, 2023 Image Chief Buffalo Memorial Murals, 2022 Public murals Dimensions variable In this interview, Moira (Miri) Villard discusses her role as an artist, storyteller, and community organizer and talks about how her practice creates spaces for healing and gives voice to untold narratives. Melanie Pankau: Your practice encompasses public art collaborations, installations, and community intensive exhibitions. As a multidisciplinary artist and community organizer, you mention you use your work to elevate Indigenous and Greater Minnesota narratives that explore the nuance of historical community intersections and promote accessible community healing spaces. Could you talk about how these narratives unfold in your work and the vital spaces they create? Moira (Miri) Villard: It maybe starts with me as an individual; I鈥檓 a mixed heritage American. A lot of us are. With being mixed, there鈥檚 both intersections between and separations of identities, and it鈥檚 the history of those intersections and separations that drives a lot of my work as an artist. I naturally tend to think in flow charts and diagrams; I鈥檓 drawn to thinking about the places where ideas and people overlap. As I piece together parts of my own identity, I find myself having a lot of questions about history. My approach to Indigenous storytelling is as a tribal direct descendant (a person with no tribal citizenship, despite having one or more tribal citizen parents), which comes with its own complications that I don鈥檛 think a lot of people realize. How all this connects to my work is through my desire to create space for people to explore their own overlaps in identity and history, whether that鈥檚 through conversation with each other while working on a mural together or more formally in curated events and experiences. We develop some aspects of our identity while being born into or prescribed other parts of it. We often have conflicts within our own identity that cause us shame or grief or confusion. For how much of an impact these conflicts have on us as individuals and communities, I feel like there鈥檚 never enough safe space to discuss any of it. I use my exhibits and arts experiences to change that. Madweyaashkaa: Waves Can Be Heard, 2021, Animation, 12 x 150 ft. Some examples include the Chief Buffalo Memorial project, which I鈥檒l talk about a little later in this interview, and my traveling exhibitions Rights of the Child and Waiting for Beds. In the latter examples, I鈥檝e done a lot of research and disseminated data into key points, which I then turn into artfully designed posters. The posters are displayed between artwork (generally paintings or mixed media pieces), which is installed in a wide range of spaces and paired with community programming. The posters offer a base level education on the topics explored in the exhibits, and give audiences the tools to have meaningful and critical conversations about said topics. Rights of the Child focuses on global childhood norms as well as human rights treaties that the United States hasn鈥檛 ratified, and the overall justification of controversial policies for the sake of 鈥渇uture generations鈥. The exhibit is usually installed in conjunction with work by youth, because often children鈥檚 rights are a subject that gets discussed without the presence of youth voices. My goal is to connect audiences to global concepts and help them apply them to the local community issues they face. In Waiting for Beds, my focus is on highlighting the absurd normalization of 鈥渨aiting鈥 for crisis care beds to open up. 鈥淲aiting for a bed鈥 is a phrase used in multiple fields, from domestic violence, to homelessness, to addiction care, to mental wellbeing and hospitalization. Many people who wait for a bed die while waiting. The exhibit is meant to pair data with lived experiences, and the exhibition itself contains sections for community submissions, where people can submit objects or artwork tied to their experiences being institutionalized or caring for people in these settings. My hope is to create an exhibition that鈥檚 impossible to look away from鈥攖o create a space where it鈥檚 impossible not to feel compelled to change the systems under which we all live. The common thread in my work is community engagement, making sure there鈥檚 space for people to insert themselves and share perspectives on the broader topics at hand in each exhibit or artwork. Madweyaashkaa: Waves Can Be Heard, 2021, Animation, 12 x 12 ft. You describe 鈥淢y medium is people and space.鈥 I鈥檓 curious how these two 鈥渕aterials鈥 are at the heart of your practice? They鈥檙e rooted in how I define art. If I had to define art in this moment, it would be 鈥渉uman ways of being鈥, with an emphasis on the action 鈥渂eing鈥 and an implied noun of 鈥減eople鈥 within an implied setting of 鈥渟pace鈥. This definition emerged partly because I don鈥檛 have a formal arts education. I鈥檓 self-taught, to the extent that I have many sources of inspiration and education that I pursued on my own time. Stylistically, I feel my use of color and my use of space stand out most as an artist. I鈥檓 drawn to surrealism as a means of layering different times and places into single imagery. In college I majored in Communicating Arts, but I focused on the theory side of communication more than my peers did. I have a fascination with architecture and the built worlds around us. I was really into Marshall McLuhan and his laws of media, 鈥渕edia is the message鈥 type stuff. The study of Media Ecology in particular really influenced how I think about art. I believe that the media used and organization of space is what makes meaningful art, it鈥檚 not always the subject matter of the work itself. What does work exhibited in a coffee shop communicate vs. the same work being hung in a high-end gallery in New York? How do we assign value to art? And what does it mean that 鈥渁rt鈥 itself is a word that doesn鈥檛 exist in many languages around the world? These are some of the questions I started to reflect on as I began pursuing a career in this field. The deeper into my career I鈥檝e gotten, the harder it鈥檚 been to align myself with a single type of artistry; what do you call an artist who creates not just paintings, but films, murals, installations, writing, graphic design, etc.? I think for me, I had to ta