"It's a huge honour," Mesiti said.

"I've been to many Venice Biennales over the years and these are big shoes to fill," she said.

"I have a project in mind but it's still very much in development."

She said it would be a video installation, like the works on display in the survey show Angelica Mesiti at the National Gallery of Australia until April 2.

It shows five of her video works created over the last 10 years. Asked if there was a common theme to the works, Mesiti said there was: "My interest is in non-verbal communication, gestures, singing, the many different ways in which we communicate."

Among the works are Citizens Band, which she said was probably the one that had toured most extensively around the world since its creation in 2012, and which showed amateur musicians making music and sounds in a variety of contexts.

She thought it was universal in its appeal because "it could be any country - people find an emotional connection to it."

Mesiti studied dance before completing bachelor and masters degrees in time-based arts at the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales. She was part of the Sydney art collective The Kingpins from 2000 to 2009, taking part in work in Australia and overseas, and began pursuing solo projects in 2008.

"That side of things took over."

She said she worked in high definition video as writer, director and editor with a cinematographer and a crew, similar to filmmaking, but was not interested in the narrative so much as the spatial, in particular three-dimensional space.

Mesiti returned to Canberra on Friday and Saturday to present workshops at the ANU and the gallery on areas such as voice, movement and dance which she described as "an enjoyable experience".

She said she would be now be devoting her energies to the Biennale, which was the most significant project in which she had ever been involved.

"This is the big one."

Angelica Mesti is on at the National Gallery of Australia until April 2.