Michal Heiman works in different media, including photography, painting, video art and installation. Her work relies heavily on theoretical sources, mainly psychoanalytical and philosophical literature, in order to deal with issues regarding power relations and women’s status in the patriarchal society.

M. Heiman works in a systematic manner, much like an archivist. For several years she has been collecting photographic images from various sources such as family albums, art books and newspapers. She sorts, arranges and signs them with unique stamps that she creates especially for her projects. Of her purpose she says: “I seek to emphasise the repressed, the invisible, everything that is left outside of the frame and what is in need to be dubbed”. Her project titled Photographer Unknown (since 1984) is an archive that includes scanned photographs, which originally were presented without the photographers’ name and remain anonymous. Each was stamped with a “Photographer unknown” mark while offering insight into issues regarding photography’s practice in general, and about the relationship between male photographer and female subject in particular.

The archival process is also the basis of creative force for other works, such as the Laying Women and What’s on your mind? series. The Laying Women series (1990-2006), presenting images of reclining women, emphasise how women were used as an object rather than subject throughout art history, painted or photographed while reclining, such as in the work Laying Woman – Photographer unknown (Eti Shtetener Shoklander), 1990. The What’s on your mind? series (1985-2003) presents sitting or laying women, usually photographed unknowingly, such as in the piece titled What’s on your mind? No. 5 1985-2003. This series also seeks to reclaim the subjectivity of the objectified female body, directly addressing the women’s thoughts and state of mind, and demanding that the viewers see them as subjects. The Michal Heiman Test (M.H.T) project is compiled from photographs that the artist placed in boxes, similar to those used by psychologists in tests such as the TAT (Thematic Apperception Test). During the Michal Heiman Test (M.H.T) No.2: Enactment exhibition (Le Quartier, Quimper, 1998), the visitors took part in the test by writing their thoughts about the photographs.

M. Heiman has exhibited throughout Israel and internationally and was the winner of the Shpilman International Prize for Excellence in Photography in collaboration with the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. She is also a lecturer at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem where she founded the Women in Academia organisation in 2015, which strives for gender equality. In 2018 she also founded An Academy of Her Own, Community Interest Company (CIC), which advocates for gender equality in academic art institutions and fights against sexual harassment and the phenomena of “serial visual harassment”, a concept coined by the artist which refers to bullying and abusive practices by teachers and lecturers in art and cultural institutions.