BOOM Universe, in partnership with Artist Communities Alliance, is proud to announce that we will be hosting fellows from the McKnight Foundation for a 4th year as part of the McKnight Artist Residencies Consortium Partner Program. Since 2022, BOOM has hosted artists such as Ananya Chatterjea (artistic director of Ananya Dance Theatre), actor and performer T. Mychael Rambo, writer and educator Chavonn Shen, playwright TyLie Shider, and others as a partner site in Pittsburgh, connecting visiting residents with our arts and culture community. Through this unique residency opportunity, BOOM Concepts connects these visiting artists with community and cultural organizations such as Bloomfield Garfield Corporation, Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Artist Image Resource, Contemporary Craft, and The August Wilson African American Cultural Center. BOOM has also facilitated connections between these visitors and the Pittsburgh artist community, and facilitates opportunities for visiting artists to exchange with the likes of slowdanger, Mars Jackson, and other Pittsburgh cultural leaders. Most importantly, artists are provided an opportunity to center time for rest and gain general support for their creative disciplines now and into the future.
This year BOOM welcomes Moira Villiard, visual artist/public speaker/community organizer, Imagine Joy, dancer/teacher/choreographer, and Shaiwna bka The Lioness, music recording and performing artist.
Moira Villiard: Through public art collaborations across Minnesota, Moira Villiard (pronounced “Miri”) is a multidisciplinary artist who uses art to uplift underrepresented narratives, explore the nuance of society’s historical community intersections, and promote community healing spaces. She is proficient in a variety of artistic genres but considers her primary medium to be space and people’s interactions with it. In 2023 she was selected as a McKnight Community Engaged Artist Fellow. The mental health-focused project Waiting for Beds is a collaboration with Carla Hamilton and the community and has toured around the region, uplifting the narratives around extensive wait times for care.
Moira grew up on the Fond du Lac Reservation in Cloquet, MN, and is a Fond du Lac direct descendent of mixed settler and Indigenous heritage. Moira works full-time as a freelance consultant, designer, and speaker and is the project director and lead artist of the Chief Buffalo Memorial Murals. As a community organizer and arts educator, she concentrates her efforts on
issues of equity and justice. Her overall work seeks to bridge gaps in community memory and recognition.
Imagine Joy: Born and raised in the South Side of Chicago, Demetrius McClendon, who is also known as ImagineJoy, began dancing with street hip-hop at the age of 15 and has traveled nationally and internationally as a professional dancer, teacher, and choreographer sharing their passion for the arts. They began their formal training at Northern Illinois University (Where they also minored in Black and LGBT Studies) and were awarded scholarships to take Summer intensives with the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, Hubbard Street, and Deeply Rooted.
Since graduating from NIU in 2011, they have danced professionally with DanceWorks Chicago, TU Dance, Owen/Cox Dance Group, and as a guest artist with Lyric Opera of Chicago, Twin Cities
Ballet, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, and the Minnesota Opera, among numerous other companies. As a community organizer that believes wholeheARTedly in the power of loving action, political education, and spiritual practice, they co-create experiences with others that heal and empower BIPOC & Queer communities engaging radical imagination as a revolutionary tool to awaken and expand creative genius. They utilize heART as a powerful vehicle to inspire and shape change.
Shaiwna bka The Lioness: The Lioness is a native of North Minneapolis, Minnesota. Having started her hip-hop career 20 years ago, she has inevitably become one of the Twin Cities premier homegrown artists. The conscious lyricist speaks to the souls of marginalized populations by addressing issues of racial inequalities and social justice in efforts to encourage and empower Black bodies, bodies of culture, queer bodies, and women across the country.
The Lioness’s solo projects include The Most Anticipated (2011); Lost Tapes (2012), Queen (2013), Growing Pains (2016), Greater Vision (2018), and her latest, gemINI (2021).
Taking her passion and skills to a broader audience, The Lioness has completed six national and two international tours. With her rapidly growing fanbase and mission to encourage and inspire, it is only a matter of time before she becomes a global headliner.
