Leyla Stevens’s research-oriented practice engages with notions of gesture, ritual, spatiality, and transculturation through moving image and photography. Drawing upon her experience as an Australian-Balinese artist, Stevens uses a hybrid form of representation that oscillates between documentary and speculative fiction to recover and restore alternative histories previously buried or made invisible by dominant narratives. Combining documentary strategies with experimental imagery that emphasizes the body and movement,  Stevens installations raise questions about her own Indonesian heritage by exploring how seemingly disparate methods of image making traverse cultural identity and the archive. Stevens has come to prominence through such immersive multi-channel video installations, including her prize-winning work Kidung/Lament (2021); an exploration of political violence in Bali, and its manifestations in contemporary social life.