Leyla Stevens
A Temple in Three Acts

In A Temple in Three Acts, Leyla Stevens responds to the evolving nature of cultural preservation and inheritance in south Bali amidst the region’s urbanisation and environmental decline. Conceived as a series of interconnected acts, the exhibition centres on material and architectural details found in the artist’s family temple, and in its expanded location within the family home and neighbourhood in Kuta.

Signalling a material turn in the artist’s predominantly moving image-based practice, temple trees, carvings and shrine decoration are represented through sculpture, drawings and prints. These material fragments map a story of trade and migration, positioning the temple as both a site of familial memory and a living archive of south Bali’s cultural and socio-economic shifts.

In a region transformed by mass tourism, temples persist as heritage sites protected by their sacred status. Responding to her family’s approach to caring and preserving their temple, Leyla Stevens’ A Temple in Three Acts engages with approaches to cultural continuity that challenge the logic of western heritage practices, speculating on what conservation might look like when steeped in tropical rain and co-habitation with birds and insects.

Leyla Stevens is an Australian-Balinese artist who works predominately within an expanded documentary and lens-based practice. Her work is informed by ongoing engagements with storied places, archives, cultural geographies and performance lineages through a transcultural lens. Leyla’s research-lead practice is centred on collaborative engagements with place and communities, and the recuperation of counter-histories within dominant narratives.

Recent solo exhibition include: PAHIT MANIS, Night Forest, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2024; A Dance Retold, Contemporary Art Tasmania, Hobart, 2023; Sang gunung menyerahkan jejaknya ke laut/The mountain gives way to the sea, CushCush Gallery, Denpasar, Bali, 2021; and Labours for Colour, Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney.

Leyla’s work has been exhibited widely through major national and international group exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healsville, Victoria; UQ Art Museum, Meanjin Brisbane, Artspace, Sydney, West Space, Naarm Melbourne; Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney; Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou; and Seoul Museum of Art.

In 2021, Leyla was awarded the prestigious 66th Blake Art Prize for her film Kidung, 2019. Her films have been screened internationally including at the 2025 CIRCA Art Prize at Picadilly Lights, London, 2025; Counter Archives: On Acts of Resistance and Remembrance, Queer East Film Festival, London 2025; Arma Festival at Arma Museum, Ubud, Bali, 2025; Queer as Folk/Lore, OTHERNESS ARCHIVE X QAMERAD, London, 2024; and View From a Body, e-flux screening, New York City, 2024.

Leyla works collaboratively as a member of Woven Kolektif and is a lecturer in Fine Arts at Monash University, Naarm Melbourne.