Viviane Silvera

Artist & filmmaker

Viviane Silvera is a Telly Award–winning filmmaker and visual artist whose work bridges neuroscience, psychology, and fine art to explore how memory shapes—and reshapes—our sense of self. Her acclaimed film See Memory—crafted from over 30,000 hand-painted frames—translates scientific insight into poetic visual storytelling, illustrating how trauma fragments memory and how healing becomes possible through presence, imagination, and narrative.

Silvera’s work has been exhibited internationally for over two decades, including at Art Basel Miami, Berlin Art Week, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Her moving image and painted works are held in the permanent collections of Vanderbilt University, the Clinton Presidential Library, Duke University, and others. Her practice has been supported by the National Academy of Fine Arts and featured in Authority Magazine’s “Inspirational Women of the Speaking Circuit” series.

Born in Hong Kong and raised in Brazil, Silvera holds a BS in Psychology and Political Science from Tufts University and an MFA from the New York Academy of Art. She is the founder of On Art, an interdisciplinary studio dedicated to exploring memory, trauma, and transformation through hand-painted film.

Papers / Presentations

See Memory (2022)

Participant In These Roundtable Discussions

Sat
Oct 4th
2025
  Watch
View roundtable details

See Memory

An Afternoon of Art, Neuroscience & Storytelling Join us for the New York premiere of the newly expanded 2025 edition of See Memory—the Bronze Telly Award–winning, hand-painted short documentary that premiered on PBS this spring. Created by filmmaker and visual artist Viviane Silvera, See Memory brings the invisible workings of memory, trauma, and healing to life through over 40,000 individually painted... read more! »