Speaking & Conversations
Where art, neuroscience, and storytelling meet.
What if art could change the way we understand memory?
Viviane Silvera brings together painting, filmmaking, and neuroscience to explore how memory shapes our identities—and how the stories we tell about our past can change.
An Emmy Award–winning director and artist, Silvera created SEE MEMORY, a PBS documentary featuring more than 30,000 hand-painted frames and conversations with leading memory researchers, including Nobel laureate Eric Kandel and neuroscientist Daniela Schiller.
Through film screenings, illustrated talks, and conversations with audiences, Silvera shares the artistic process behind her work and explores the unexpected connections between creativity, science, and human experience.
Her presentations invite audiences to look more closely, ask new questions, and consider how art can illuminate ideas that are difficult to express in words.
Speaking Topics
The Art and Science of Memory
How does remembering shape who we are? Drawing on SEE MEMORY and conversations with neuroscientists, Silvera explores memory, identity, and the evolving science of remembering.
Painting Memory: The Making of SEE MEMORY
An inside look at the creative process behind an Emmy Award–winning documentary built from thousands of individually hand-painted frames. A conversation about experimentation, artistic decisions, and the challenges of translating scientific ideas into images.
What Art Can Teach Us About the Brain
How can artists and scientists illuminate one another's work? A presentation exploring the intersection of visual art, perception, neuroscience, and human experience.
The Creative Process: Discovering What You Didn't Know You Were Looking For
What happens when an artist begins without knowing exactly where the work will lead? Silvera explores how experimentation, uncertainty, and unexpected discoveries shape creative work—and why those ideas matter beyond the studio.
Ways to Engage
Film screenings followed by filmmaker Q&As
Guest lectures and illustrated presentations
University and medical-school discussions
Museum and arts-program conversations
Interdisciplinary panels and moderated discussions
Artist talks and studio visits
Presentations can be tailored to audiences in neuroscience, psychology, medicine, film, visual arts, and the humanities.
Selected Institutions
Silvera's film and work have been presented at institutions including UCLA, Yale, Columbia, Tufts, Vassar, Davidson College, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Invite Viviane to Speak
Interested in bringing Viviane Silvera to your institution, conference, museum, or program?
Please get in touch with your proposed date, location, audience, and event format.