Meirav Heiman

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Biographical Notes
1972 Born in Israel
1994-1998 B.F.A, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem
1996 S.V.A, School of Visual Art, New York, Art Department (exchange program)
Lives and works in Tel Aviv
Solo Exhibitions
2004 - "The Villa (Part A)", Noga Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tel-Aviv
2003 - "Split", Noga gallery, Tel-Aviv
2003 - "gullet", Herzliya Museum of Art, Herzliya
2001 - Noga gallery, Tel-Aviv
2001 - "Sister of mercy", Borochov Gallery, Tel Aviv
1999 - " Who comes to Mum", Dada, Center of Photography Studying , Tel-Aviv
Group Exhibitions
2006 - "Spatial Borders and Local Borders", The Open Museum of Photography at Tel Hai
2006 - "Making a Scene, Staged Photography in Contemporary Art", Haifa Museum of Art
2006 - "Seduction", Time for Art, Bait Banamal Gallery, Tel-Aviv
2005 - "The Third Transchina Video Art Festival", Beijing, China
2004 - "Love is in the Air", Time for Art, Israeli Art Center, Tel-Aviv
2003 - "Art Forum Berlin", Berlin
2003 - "Young Israeli Art", Tel-Aviv Museaum, Tel-Aviv
2003 - "Rules of the Game", Noga gallery, Tel-Aviv
2003 - "Affirmative Action", Works from the museum collection and loans, Tel-Aviv Museum
2003 - "Your Home is my Home", Video Art Festival, The Orensans foundation for the art, New york, NY
2002 -"New Collection", Tel-Aviv Museaum of art, Tel-Aviv
2001 -"The perfect couple", Noga gallery, Tel-Aviv
2001 - America-Israel Cultural Foundation Award Winners, University Gallery, Tel Aviv
2000 - International Young Art by ArtLink@Sothby's Tel-Aviv, Vienna and Chicago.
1998 - "Out of the Frame", Bat-Yam Museum.
1998 - Graduates Exhibition, Photography Department, Bezalel. A Video installation.
1998 - "Young Photography", Tel-Chai Museum.
Scholarships and Awards
2002 - Artist-Teacher Award, The Israeli Ministry of Science, Culture and Sport
1991 - The "America-Israel Foundation" Scholarship, Tel Aviv
About Heiman's Work
In her last exhibition she was sitting in the center of a gallery beside a wide desk baring a computer, a screen, a keyboard, a printer, a small video camera and work related papers. Meirav Heiman was born in 1972, graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Department of Photography in 1998, and currently lives and works in Tel Aviv.
Throughout the whole month, Meirav Heiman remained in the exhibition space of the Borohov Gallery day in and day out. Between 16:00 and 20:00 in the evening, she will sit in the center of this space; her back turned to the visitors coming in and out of the exhibition, engaging in constant and on-going random chats with random people on the net. A big projection screen will enable visitors to not only stare over Heiman's shoulder, beyond the computer screen, but also be exposed to the chat in real time, both as evolving information and a live image on the wall further down the exhibition hall. The rest of the exhibition will showcase a series of enlarged c-prints of men and women with whom Heiman met following her previous chats. These are men and women she met online, using alias names, and who agreed to her request to meet face to face. Heiman intended on photographing her subjects during these meetings, staging intimate although not always romantic situations. She met them for dinner, for a single night, for her leisure. Sometimes in a restaurant, sometimes in an empty apartment, sometimes in her house, and more, while the degree of exposure is directly related to the interaction built up during these encounters.
During these rendez-vous, Heiman mimics familiar human interactions. She plays worn-out parts, duplicating exhausted stereotypes. Only these human dynamics are created and limited to their given time, to anonymous characters, playing on enhancing the element of chance and random, the drama and boldness on the part of the people participating in this production. There are no hopes of a romantic relationship in these meetings. The people meeting have no past and no future, only the experience exists. An extreme situation examining the conflict between anonymity and intimacy, imagination and reality, text and image. Meirav Heiman's work deal with virtual reality, or maybe real virtuality, turning the logical connection between the two, forming a clear and poignant saying on the human experience and communication in the beginning of the third millennia.

Text by: Hadas Maor