Documentary practices #3 with Shelly Silver

Shelly Silver is a filmmaker and artist working with the still and moving image. Her work explores contested territories between public and private, narrative and documentary, and--increasingly in recent years--the watcher and the watched. Spoken and written language, collaged narratives, framings in time and space, all become clues into shifting locations of power, identity and desire. To speak and to listen, to look and let oneself be seen, is, or should be a pleasure, and like all pleasures, tinged with ambiguity and risk. Silver’s practice is a labor of attention. She has exhibited worldwide, including at the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, Centre Georges Pompidou, the Museum of Contemporary Art/LA, the Yokohama Museum, the London ICA, and the London, the Singapore, New York, Moscow, and Berlin Film Festivals. Her films have been broadcast by BBC/England, PBS/USA, Arte/Germany, France, Planete/Europe, RTE/Ireland, SWR/Germany, and Atenor/Spain. Silver has received numerous fellowships and grants from organizations such as the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, NYSCA, NYFA, the Jerome Foundation, the Japan Foundation and Anonymous was a Woman and has been a fellow at the DAAD Artists Program in Berlin, the Japan/US Artist Program, Cité des Arts in Paris, and LMCC/NY, TOKAS/Tokyo, Macdowell, Yaddo, Bogliasco and Montalvo Residencies. Silver is Professor and Director of Moving Image, Visual Arts Program, School of the Arts, Columbia University.