“A Line in the Sea”
Leyla Stevens
23 Jan → 7 Mar 2021

Leyla Stevens, ‘A Line in the Sea’, 2019, three channel moving image, 9 min 45 sec. Image courtesy of artist.

A Line in the Sea by Leyla Stevens is a moving-image work that contests the construction of Bali as an island paradise within the Australian imagination. The multi-channel video is a feminist retelling of a seventies Australian cult surf-film that popularised Bali as a tourist destination. The lush, colour-saturated imagery directly references the footage of Australian male surfers as they ‘discover’ south Bali’s coastlines, less than a decade following Indonesia’s anti-communist killings that claimed 80,000 lives in Bali alone. Using speculative and documentary modes of filmmaking, the work explores the spectral trace of Bali’s political violence and looks at the ways in which Australian surfer romance wiped the island clean of past atrocities.

Public Program

Leyla Stevens in conversation with Lauren Carroll Harris

Saturday 20 February 4pm - 5pm (online)

A Line in the Sea is presented in partnership with PHOTO2021 and supported by the City of Yarra. This project is powered by Lūpa Media Player.

Installation view of a three channel video in the West Space gallery with a row of six chairs facing the work. The first channel shows a female surfer wearing a black wetsuit sitting on her board. The sky and ocean are a pale grey with clouds gathering in the top right corner. The second channel depicts palm trees and the third shows another female surfer on her board with a darkening blue sky and ocean.
Installation view of a three channel video in the West Space gallery with a row of six chairs facing the work. Each of the three channels shows a richly forested scene of palm trees and other greenery.
Installation view of a three channel video in the West Space gallery. The gallery has hardwood floors with two people seated on chairs to the right side of the gallery. The first channel shows a Balinese woman with long, dark hair wearing a black and white printed top and gold chain necklace. The blurred background has muted green and blue tones. The second channel shows a forest with three pale tree trunks. The third depicts two female surfers on the water with a vivid pink and red sky.

Leyla Stevens is an Australian-Balinese artist and researcher who works predominantly with moving image. Working within modes of representation that shift between documentary and speculative fictions, her work deals with notions of counter histories and alternative genealogies. She is currently undertaking doctoral research at the University of Technology Sydney, which has been supported in part by an Australian Postgraduate Award.