moira williams

2024 Access.Movement.Play. Residency Artist

moira williams (they/them) is a disabled artist, disability cultural activist, access doula, and dreamer of Lenni Lenape, Kickapoo and Sami descent. They believe in and initiate everyday magic, ancestor time, ecological intimacies, access as art, and celebratory crip resistance in their daily relationships.

moira’s often co-creative work weaves together ritual making and sharing, human and ecological intimacies, and eco-somatics with participatory movement, choreographed walks, embodied bio stories, gatherings and civic engagement. moira’s ongoing co-creativity with water and people, unsettles ableist and ecological boundaries between bodies and practices of scarcity by imagining “water  intimacy” as an expansion of Mia Mingus’s concept of “access intimacy”. they do this as a way to deepen our interdependent ecological relationships and understandings towards knowledge sharing, mutual empathy, and belonging, opening possibilities.

moira is honored to be featured in Eliza Chandler’s upcoming book, “Disability Arts Across Turtle Island,” Routledge Press.

  • Access. Movement. Play. (A.M.P.) Residency Program
  • 2024 A.M.P. Residency Artists
A photo of a light skinned Indigenous female presenting person faces forward and kneels in the left side of the photo. Their head is bent downward with their eyes almost closed. They have dark reddish hair pulled back in a long braid. The braid dangles forward over their rounded shoulders as they lean into a silver bowl. This is moira, their elbows are bent and their hands are in the bowl. The bowl is filled with white colored gooey dough that is drying in large chunks on their hands. They are wearing a white sleeveless tank top, a wide bright orange a pouch at their bent waist and bright blue pants. The bowl sits on a wooden plank floor that has large painted and scuffed shapes in white, black and brown. On moira’s right is a silver tray with holes. It casts a round shadow with dots. On top of the tray are 5 clear glass jars partly filled with gooey liquids and powdery dry grains. The jars have clear gelatin in rounded shapes on top. Each gelatin visible has long green narrow leaves, bright red berries, or a tiny speckled brown egg inside. Behind moira is part of a video projection on a screen. The projection is a close up bird's eye view of a worn stone staircase with a bright orange string slowly moving up the stairs. In front of and to the right of the screen is a live person’s arm stretching in front of the screen and gently holding a bright orange ribbon in their brown hand. The ribbon is attached to the screen and it hangs in 2 big U’s as it dribbles onto the floor. The person appears as a silhouette dressed in black, visible from the shoulders down. Photo by Yuli Dudnyk.
ID: A photo of a light skinned Indigenous female presenting person faces forward and kneels in the left side of the photo. Their head is bent downward with their eyes almost closed. They have dark reddish hair pulled back in a long braid. The braid dangles forward over their rounded shoulders as they lean into a silver bowl. This is moira, their elbows are bent and their hands are in the bowl. The bowl is filled with white colored gooey dough that is drying in large chunks on their hands. They are wearing a white sleeveless tank top, a wide bright orange a pouch at their bent waist and bright blue pants. The bowl sits on a wooden plank floor that has large painted and scuffed shapes in white, black and brown. On moira’s right is a silver tray with holes. It casts a round shadow with dots. On top of the tray are 5 clear glass jars partly filled with gooey liquids and powdery dry grains. The jars have clear gelatin in rounded shapes on top. Each gelatin visible has long green narrow leaves, bright red berries, or a tiny speckled brown egg inside. Behind moira is part of a video projection on a screen. The projection is a close up bird's eye view of a worn stone staircase with a bright orange string slowly moving up the stairs. In front of and to the right of the screen is a live person’s arm stretching in front of the screen and gently holding a bright orange ribbon in their brown hand. The ribbon is attached to the screen and it hangs in 2 big U’s as it dribbles onto the floor. The person appears as a silhouette dressed in black, visible from the shoulders down. Photo by Yuli Dudnyk.