Welcome to the monoseum. My name is Isabel Heiss. I'm a German-born Australian artist and live and work in the Northern Rivers on Bundjalung country. How my art practice began is an interesting question because I generally believe that we all create and make art from a very early age on, and so I don't remember picking up a pencil or a pen and making art because it's always been there in a way. What really kick-started it, I would say, was my father. My father is a creative himself. He was a blacksmith. We had a wonderful workshop down in the basement where I got to experiment and play and get dirty and loud. That really helped me to become a maker, I guess.

My art practice began with making with my dad, but also with mainly painting and being a painter was the thing. It was being an artist, that's what it meant. And it was not until later that I questioned that belief and broke it in the process, which is really fun. Well, it wasn't fun at the time, but it's really fun now. And now I work mainly in video installation and some expanded painting sculpture. I'm interdisciplinary now. My practice is media driven, so I change it all the time. And that is challenging at times, rewarding a lot of times, and gets me to grow a lot, learn a lot about new media, how to work with them, how to actually realize ideas in something that I have no idea about.

The piece for the monoseum is called This Is My Space. It comes from a very personal experience. It is about taking up space and how do you take up space, how do you allow yourself to take up space, and what does it mean to express yourself and when are you really true to yourself, right? And what does it mean when you get too big and too loud and you egg on, you rub against the edges of other people who also are trying to take up space in their own way? So that's mainly what this work is about in a personal sense. You can translate it into the wider senses you like, in a world where everything is pretty loud and big and noisy. This is why it's here. It might make some noise. I hope it brings a bit of joy and a bit of contemplation space as well.

My practice generally is about inner processes, psychological questions. It's about identity, memory, and interconnectedness with the world. This piece sits right in there. It is evolved from other pieces that I made a few years back. One was called Within Cells Interlinked, which is a massive inflated walk-in installation. You get to experience that breeze and you can be in it and feel like Jonas and the Little Whale or in the Big Whale. The other one is Luftikus, which is a more meditative smaller version of that. Both of these works were about also taking up space, but it is about the air that takes up space around us that holds us, that is not visible, and how to give that shape, to give that a body, to be visible and seen. With This is my space, it is basically flipped back onto oneself to question within how do you take up space or what does it mean to take up space as a person.

I've been asked about a piece of advice to give to someone who's beginning their journey, their practice, their art practice. My advice is keep making, keep questioning, be curious, and don't be too hard on yourself. And it all matters, basically.

The song I have picked for this is called My Cosmos Is Mine, which is a fun title, but just as this fun artwork, it has a pretty dark narrative, actually. It's by a band called Depeche Mode. And it was written, I think, just briefly after Russia invaded Ukraine. And it was Dave's reflection on what is happening in this world and a lot of claiming going on and mulling and taking up space.