Lynn Silvermann
Sound Composed by Jason Sloan
After graduating with a BFA in Photography from Pratt Institute, Lynn moved to Australia. She was drawn to Australia’s vast desert interior, a place that defies traditional conceptions of landscape. This was the subject of her first one-person exhibition, Horizons (1981), at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.
In 1983, Lynn moved to the UK. While teaching photography at several art schools, Lynn published four books, Furniture Fictions (1989), 1:1 (1993), Corporation House (1996), and Interior Light (1997). She participated in many solo and group shows. During this period, Lynn received an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths’ College, London.
In 1999, Lynn relocated to Baltimore to teach photography at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Since then, she received a Fulbright Scholarship in 2010 to the Czech Republic.
Lynn continues to participate in exhibitions and publish books. Memory Foam was first screened in 2022 at Goya Contemporary. A selection of images from her most recent photographic project, In A Matter of Time, were included in the 2024 Fotofest 10x10 Exhibition and was the focus of a one-person show at Goya Contemporary in 2025. In 2025, Lynn was awarded a New York Public Library short-term research fellowship to explore their collection of panoramic photographs. Her latest video Between death and was included in the Experiments in Cinema Festival, held in Albuquerque in April 2026. Lynn is represented by Goya Contemporary, Baltimore.
Lynn Silverman uses the medium of light in photography and video to explore the material world in her search for more nuanced relationships between universal desires and individual expression, the past and present.
A hybrid work combining black and white still photographs with sound, Memory Foam depicts an imaginary house that is a composite of views assembled from twenty-six different homes. The video features ordinary lamps that illuminate a variety of interior details. The soundtrack, composed by Jason Sloan, is drawn from audio recordings of the sound generated by the electromagnetic field unique to each light source depicted in the video.
For most of us, “home” connotes an intimate space and, as such, may be thought of as a reflection of the self. The video attempts to blur the boundary between the individual and the world through shared experiences as evidenced, for instance, in the overlapping infrastructure collaged from several basements or the ubiquitous framed photographs of family and friends that appear throughout the video. Animals and plants thrive in this house, too. Clock faces serve as pauses or intervals between groups of images. The presence of digital technology explores how our personal environment is increasingly mediated and monitored by technology.
Memory Foam is a unique way of exploring the interface between still imagery, animation, and sound. Throughout the film, light and sound are the connecting threads as the camera makes its way from the basement foundation to the attic eaves, highlighting intimate details of love and domestic life along the way.
Memory Foam, single channel video, running time 13'50", 2022, variable dimensions
