Biography of Shelly Silver

Using an irreverent mixture of fiction, documentary and experimental genres, Shelly SilverÕs films and videos examine questions of contemporary identity, whether that identity is based on gender, nationality, language, family, or a shared t.v. culture. Full of humor, contradictions and a love of language and storytelling, SilverÕs work eschews the use of an authoritative voice, calling for a more active viewer who must question not only what they are watching but how they are watching it. Appropriating the tools of the mass media for her own purposes, Silver can be seen as examining the uneasy relationship between the very public and the very private.

Shelly Silver was born in New York City, and after receiving a B.F.A. in mixed media and a B.A. in History from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, she moved to Manhattan and studied in the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program. Although she travels extensively, she still considers New York her home.

Her longer works include The Houses That Are Left (1991), a genre-splicing experimental narrative shot on 16mm b&w; film and color video which premiered at the Museum of Modern Art, Former East/Former West (1994), an essay on Germany identity after the Reunification, shot in Berlin while a fellow with the DAAD Artist Program which had its premiere at The New York Film Festival, Lincoln Center, and 37 Stories About Leaving Home (1996), an experimental documentary on Japanese mothers and daughters, shot in Tokyo while a fellow with the Japan/US Creative Arts Fellowship Program. This work, which also premiered at Lincoln Center, was shown as part of an installation by Haim Steinbach at the Venice Biennial. Shorter works include Meet The People (1986), Things I Forget To Tell Myself (1988), getting in. (1989), We (1990), April 2nd (1994) and an ongoing series of videos entitled Fragments.

Silver's work has been screened extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Japan including: The Museum of Modern Art, NYC; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Pacific Film Archives, Berkeley; Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea, Rome; Musee National D'art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The American Center, Paris; The National Film Theatre, London; The ICA, London; The Museum of Kyoto, Japan; Laforet Art Museum, Tokyo; Kunstverein in Hamburg, Germany; Witte de With Centre, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Her work has been broadcast on PBS, USA; BBC, England, Sudwestfunk, Germany; Atanor Television, Spain; Kunstkanaal, Netherlands, RTE Television, Ireland; Channel 2, Poland, among others.

Festivals include The New York Film Festival, Video Section; The London Film Festival; Festival Int'l du Nouveau Cinema, Montreal, Canada; Pesaro International Film Festival; The San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film Festival; Filmladen Documentary Film Festival, Kassel, Germany; The American Film Institute Video Festival, Los Angeles, CA; Osnabruck Media Arts Festival, Germany; Image Forum Festival, Tokyo, Japan; Internationale de Films de Femme de Montreal, Canada; Torino International Film Festival, Italy and the Singapore International Film Festival.

Her work has been awarded prizes at such places as Femmes Cathodique Video Festival in Paris, The Australia International Film and Video Festival, The Atlanta Film and Video Festival, The Houston International Film and Video Festival and the Charlotte Film and Video Festival. Her most recent video was awarded a Golden Dove for Best Documentary at the Leipzig International Documentary Film Festival.

Silver has received numerous grants and fellowships including from The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts and The New York Foundation for the Arts, the Checkerboard Foundation and The Japan Foundation. She has had artist residencies with The DAAD Berlin Artist Exchange Program, The Japan/US Friendship Commission and the Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris