On View

Viviane Silvera

See Memory

See Memory is a stop-motion film made out of 10,000 painting stills. The film explores how our memories define who we are, how we remember, and the link between memory and imagination.

Video still from See Memory, Viviane Silvera © 2017
Video still from See Memory, Viviane Silvera © 2017

See Memory was inspired by Oliver Sacks’s article Speak Memory. The narration version of the film uses interviews with neuroscientists and psychiatrists including Nobelist Eric Kandel. The film explains our “magical capability” called memory, the essence of what we call “self”.

Research in neuroscience has shown that far from being fixed, from the moment we recall them, memories are in flux, interacting and mingling with imagination. See Memory explores this idea in shifting layers of imagery with perception interacting with dreams and imagination.

The positive reaction, particularly from the scientific community, has sparked support for a full-length production that is currently in development.


About the Artist

Viviane Silvera is an artist and filmmaker who grew up in Hong Kong and Brazil and currently lives in New York City. After receiving her BS from Tufts University in Cognitive Psychology and Political Science, Silvera went on to receive her MFA at the New York Academy of Art. Her work has been exhibited at numerous worldwide galleries and is held in the Clinton Presidential Library, Flashpoint Media Academy and Vanderbilt University. It has been written about in the Wall Street Journal, Gotham magazine, Time Out New York, Fine Art Connoisseur magazine and The New York Times, among others.

Her latest project, See Memory was an official selection of the American Psychological Association Film Festival the Imagine Science Film Festival, the Viten Film Festival and the BLOW-UP Chicago Art House Film Festival and was recently screened on the University of Mary Washington’s Media Wall, the Edward Hopper House and Joe’s Pub at the Public. Recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition of paintings at the Edward Hopper House where she won the award of excellence in painting, and at Marymount California University’s Arts & Media Gallery. Silvera is currently in production on the film length film Feel Memory.