Joel Silverman is an interdisciplinary artist and museum Curator of Time-Based Media Art based in Atlanta

Much of my work focuses on excavating stories of community resistance for justice too-long denied.  I create counter-monuments that scrutinize the stories America tells about itself.  These works are placed in cities as digital projections, annotating the built environment; or as interactive and immersive installations in museums.   My practice asks a viewer to assess their role in history and the part every person has to play in freedom for all. 

I have spent a career at the forefront of the creation and conservation of digital artwork, and exploring new frontiers in interactive storytelling technology.  I create site-specific installations brought to life through motion-activated video projection and sound.  My work is intended as urban archaeology, recovering lost histories of our communities and drawing audiences to sites reverberating with ancestral memory—where the passage of time or intentional forgetting has blurred our vision of a shared humanity.  It is artwork that is unfinished until a viewer becomes an active participant in reenacting pivotal moments of liberation and bearing witness to long-past spasms of violence.   

My background as a lawyer and political organizer steeped in democracy work informs my approach.  This work takes the Civil Rights Movement’s dream of a “beloved community” as a starting point, in which a critical mass of people become committed to the philosophy and methods of nonviolence.  Love and trust might yet triumph over fear and hate.