Moira Villiard - Rights of the Child

The USA is the only country in the United Nations that hasn’t ratified the UN Convention on the rights of the child.

What exactly does this mean?

Through an exhibition of paintings and digitally designed posters by Duluth-based artist Moira Villiard exploring the essence of childhood and children’s rights in modern times. Her work also calls attention to individual cognitive dissonance, or “doublethink,” that occurs when people hold two contradictory beliefs about an issue or situation. This free event will focus on children’s rights at a global and local level, how these areas overlap, and shed light on the notion of “doublethink” that creates an atmosphere of misunderstanding. One of the questions asked will be, “What are the core aspects of children’s rights, and how is consensus about their applicability achieved?”

The subjects of the paintings include a mixture of images of Villiard as a child in different contexts and referenced photos of people she knows (who also are mixed identity) when they were children. Villiard felt she could not adequately get consent from children to paint them for this exhibit so that’s where the decision to rely on permissions of people who are no longer children and who can consent to the use of their childhood photos came from. Some of the children (i.e. Portrait of Steveboyyi) have specific stories that the work tries to capture. Others will be pieces that explore the fun and curiosity of youth in a more general sense. The combination of depictions will allow for a broader illustration of the complexity of childhood and the rights that come with it.

Moira Villiard is a fiscal year 2019 recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. 

Image: “Steveboyyi” by Moira Villaird.