Art Events in Madison

Novelist & poet Dale M. Kushner and filmmaker & artist Viviane Silvera explore the intersections of storytelling, neuroscience, & visual art. The conversation will be moderated by Michelle Wildgen, author and Writer-in-Residence at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. Centered around Viviane’s film See Memory—composed of over 30,000 hand-painted frames—the discussion will explore how memory and trauma shape personal narrative, and how creative practice can make visible the otherwise unseen processes of the mind. The conversation reflects an ongoing creative dialogue between the two, including Dale’s forthcoming book Wild Freedom: The Princess Who Found Her Name – On Fairy Tales, Imagination and the Creative Mind, which features several of Viviane’s paintings. Drawing from both literary and visual approaches, the conversation will consider how stories are formed, remembered, and reimagined—and how engaging with memory through art can open new ways of understanding experience.