Michal Heiman is a member of the Tel-Aviv Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis.
For over three decades, Heiman inhabits a field between art and psychoanalysis, photography, diagnosis and human rights, theory and praxis, bringing her critical voice to bear on issues of history, studying neglected histories and their visual aspects, exploring and questioning the ability of visual tools to access traumatic experiences. Heiman is the inaugural winner of the Shpilman International Prize for Excellence in research on photography, in collaboration with Israel Museum.
Heiman’s works celebrate the synchronicity of the familiar with the diverse, within the faces of change. Through multiple techniques, subjects envision the psychological condition of return, mergers and transport through space and time, incorporating the participation and input of the patrons. Her large-scale installations, archival materials, photography and film series, as well as her performance work, have been exhibited largely in venues around the world, and are included in the collections of institutions and private collections worldwide.
Some of Michal’s major contributions include “Documenta X”, Kassel, Germany in 1997, “Attacks on Linking”, at the Helena Rubinstein Pavilion, Tel Aviv Museum in 2008, the Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Japan, the Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, Holland, the Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, Museum Ludwig, Köln, Germany. She was staged in 1994 at The University of Melbourne Museum of Art “The Ian Potter Gallery”. Heiman has focused on her ongoing journey and research with anonymous and marginalized women in recent years. This led to the following projects, “AP Artist Proof – Asylum (The Dress, 1855–2017)” at the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel, “Radical Link: A New Community of Women, 1855–2020” at the Katzen Art Center, American University Museum, Washington, DC, 2019, and “Hearing” at the American Jewish University, Los Angeles, CA, 2020. In 2022 Heiman will be exhibiting “Chronically Links” at Binghamton University Art Museum, NY.
Radical Link: A New Community of Women, 1855–2022, Guard No. 7 – Mask: detail from “Face to Face with God”, 1995, by Shirin Neshat (b. Iran, 1957), artist (2016)
Radical Link: A New Community of Women, 1855–2022 Mask: Virginia Woolf (b. London, 1882–1941), writer, detail from photograph by George Charles Beresford, 1902 (2016)
Radical Link: A New Community of Women, 1855–2022 Mask: the artist with a detail from a photograph of Dora Heiman Kagan (b. Marijampolė, 1901–1941) (2016)
Radical Link: A New Community of Women, 1855–2022 Mask: “Plate 34 My Self,” detail from a manipulated photograph by Dr. Hugh Diamond, 1855, 2016
Radical Link: A New Community of Women, 1855–2022 Mask: detail from “Untitled #153,” 1985, by Cindy Sherman (b. New Jersey, 1954), artist, 2016
Q_Michal Heiman_Radical Link_D.1603114550_Mask Freda Kalo._57X43.5 cm._send
Radical Link: A New Community of Women, 1855–2022 Self Portrait (2013 )
Radical Link: A New Community of Women, 1855-2022, Noureldin Musa (b. Bendisea, 1976), asylum seeker, photographer, lives in Toronto (2015)
Radical Link: A New Community of Women, 1855–2020 Asmait Yohannes (b. Dekemhare, 1989), asylum seeker, lives in Toronto, 2013
Radical Link: A New Community of Women, 1855–2022 Eilon Malhi, Musician
Radical Link: A New Community of Women, 1855–2022 Mask: “Plate 34 My Self,” detail from a manipulated photograph by Dr. Hugh W. Diamond, 1855, 2016
Radical Link: A New Community of Women, 1855–2022 Ahuva Pinkas (b. Eishol LeZion, 1936-2017), gallerist, 2016 Photograph by Henry Hering of Elizabeth Thew, Bethlem Royal Hospital, London, ca. 1857-1853
Book Spines, MHI (Magnetic Heiman Imaging): Encyclopedia of Sex Knowledge (by Dr. Costler and Dr. Willy, vols. 1-2, Jerusalem, 1946), 2008
Book Spines, MHI (Magnetic Heiman Imaging): Shabbtai Zevi (by Gershon Scholem, vols. 1-2, Tel Aviv 1974), 2008
Book Spines, M.H.I. (Magnetic Heiman Imaging): Psychology (by Itzhak Mirkin, Jerusalem, 1929), 2008
Book Spines, MHI (Magnetic Heiman Imaging): Psychology (by Vera Mahler, vols. 1-2, Tel Aviv, 1961-65), 2008
Book Spines, M.H.I. (Magnetic Heiman Imaging): Machzor (Fifth part, for Pentecost by Haim Arglebrand, Warsaw 1872), 2008
Book Spines, M.H.I. (Magnetic Heiman Imaging): Lolita (by Vladimir Nabokov), 2008