WIMO AMBALA BAYANG
Wimo Ambala Bayang is an artist and photographer based in Jogjakarta, Central Java. A founding member of the influential artist collective Ruang MES 56 - or typically just MES 56 - Wimo’s work has been exhibited international, including in exhibitions held at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, the Johnson Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai, the Hong-Gah Museum in Taipei, and the National Museum of Singapore. He is also founder of Video Battle, an online platform for experimental video art.
interview by Brian Arnold
What is your first memory of photography? The first time you released its value or importance?
My first memories of photography are pictures of my family, in which me and my siblings are all scattered around our parents’s house. When my parents were still alive, I would come home and look over the albums, especially when I couldn’t sleep. When my parents died, my youngest sister kept the albums with her. When I visit my sister in Bali at Christmas and look over the albums, for family memories. I look over them myself when everyone else is sleeping. I always cry when I look at our family pictures. I had a similar response to a Diane Arbus photograph, of a blind couple in bed, exhibited at the Foam Museum in Amsterdam in December 2012. Maybe I am a sentimental person, but this personal aspect of photography is one of the things I value about it.
In 1998, I took a class on Expressive Photography at ISI (Institut Seni Indonesia - Indonesian Institute of Art) in Yogyakarta. All of us in the class felt empowered to express ourselves through photography, we felt courageous. The class put together a public exhibition, and I felt my work was well received, I even received an award from ISI Yogya for the Best Photograph (category). In 1999, the MES community exhibited at GFJA (Galeri Foto Jurnalistik Antara - the Antara Gallery of Photojournalism), in an exhibition curated by Yudhi Soerjoatmodjo, a prominent curator at the time, entitled Revolution #9. It was really at this time I felt it was important to continue my work as a photographic artist.
How did you first get started making photographs?
When I was a small child I would often make pictures of my family using my mother’s compact camera. (A family story, I once even threw her camera into a small river above our house). When I entered ISI I felt my pictures were lacking, both in ideas and technical understanding of the medium. One night, in an act of desperation, I had a conversation with my camera. I told it I needed to take the ISI patch off of my jacket, that I didn’t deserve to wear it because my photographs were no good. (In the 1990s it was very common for students enrolled at ISI Jogja to wear school patches on their jackets or bags, as a matter of pride, because the school was very selective and it was hard to get in.) I took the patch off and put in a pocket inside my camera bag. A few days later I was printing some film in the darkroom, working on a picture of a woman selling cabbage, and I saw an ISI patch on the edge of the picture frame. I realized it was my patch - it must have fallen out of the bag - when my classmates and I were photographing in the Kaponan Market, a traditional market at the base of Mount Sumbing in Central Java. Seeing my patch in the frame made me a little sad, but I also had to laugh, remembering the conversation I had with my camera. It was a really turning point for me, however, and all the pictures I made in the darkroom that day scored the highest marks in class. At the end of the term, I even got an award for best black and white printing. From that time on I felt capable of making good photographs.
You were part of the first generation of photographers educated at ISI Yogyakarta? What was your experience of that program?
I entered the department of Media and Recording Arts (REKAM) in 1996, as part of the third class in the program originally founded in 1994. At the time most of the lecturers were working photographers, not academics, so most of our studies focused on technical aspects of the medium. I was really interested in the Expressive Photography course - this changed a lot for me - taught by Mr. Subroto SM, a member of the painting faculty. He encouraged a very experimental approach to photography, he wanted us to be wild and crazy with it. Unfortunately he is no longer teaching, no one can replace him.
How do you think photographic education has changed in Java since your time in school?
I think - but I could be wrong - but it seems photographic education in Java has not changed too much. There are important changes, though nothing compared to the changes in popular discourse on photography. The real changes are coming from smartphone and internet technologies. I don’t say change in a good or bad way but there are very serious developments in photographic behavior and perceptions in Java, which have led to really extraordinary photographic practices. But I do think these practices carried out by the wider community are honest, and provide new and authentic voices,allowing people to articulate their own lives.
How did MES 56 come about?
We started as a community of photo students at ISI Yogya. Many of us were renting rooms at Jalan (Street) Colonel Sugiyono No. 56, a house with several pavilions on it, and a former dormitory for members of the Indonesian Air Force (AURI - Angkatan Udara Repubik Indonesia). There were still two members of the Air Force living there with us. A gate was installed to separate our living quarters, with a sign marked ‘MES AURI,’ so friends around campus started call those of that that lived there the ‘MES Children,’ or even just the ‘MES Boys.’
The MES Boys were a group of photo students more interested in the fine arts scene than in the photo scene, which at that time was pretty mainstream and boring. The community here was very experimental and creative, and actively developing projects and collaborations both on and off campus. What I remember most is that during my second semester, in 1997, the students rooming at Jalan Colonel Sugiyono put together an exhibition, and used a hallway in the MES house as a gallery, to showcase their experimental work using photography. The show was called LANGKAh, and it clearly showed an interest in alternative and experimental practices. In 2002, with difficult finding opportunities for ourselves and inspired by some other alternative, artist run spaces in Indonesia like Ruang Rupa (Jakarta) and Apotik Komik and Taring Padi (Jogja), together with some friends I helped turn our living space into an alternative gallery, with the name Ruang MES 56. Our main interest was to showcase photographic works, but works aligned with our tastes and passions, we wanted a space to play, learn and experiment. In February 2002, we put together an exhibition curated by Yudhi Soerjoatmodjo (GFJA), we gave our inaugural exhibition as Ruang MES 56.
How has MES 56 evolved and what is it today?
Since 2002 we have shaped and defined our vision several times, and since 2014 MES has defined itself as a group of artists working cooperatively, managing a house and network that are used as a studio, research space, playroom, and home. With independent funding since 2002, this community relies on photography and contemporary art that intersects with other disciplines, both critically and contextually, in order to create an open, creative, and independent community.
You’ve traveled through various parts of Asia and Europe. Is there something unique about photography in Indonesia? Different from other parts of Southeast Asia or the rest of the world?
To be honest, when I first started college I wasn’t too interested in the techniques and history of photography, and was much more interested in the history of art in Europe (mostly Western Europe, but also from Eastern Europe) and the United States. At the time this kind of information was much more accessible and visible, and you could be sure that these countries had much more control over the distribution of knowledge and ideas (perhaps a post-colonial syndrome hehe). I think that studying art is no different than studying languages. Once you master a language, it is much easier to express your ideas, just so with photography; when you understand the nature of the medium, you can express much more about your ideas and approaches.
Talking about Indonesian photography, this is a much bigger issue. There are some simple ways to understand it, however, because what appears as subject matter, a photographer always comes from someplace and a picture coming from Indonesia will always show something of that place - the subject matter/issue/object/place are always unique.
Another way to think about it is that when someone comes from a certain culture background, non-English speaking, and then tries to use English. Their approach to the language is usually unique - when Singaporean speak English it is often called Sing-lish, or how English is used in Jamaica. There is something here about a Mother tongue. I think the same can be applied to photography, that somehow it evolves with the other languages (visual or verbal) that surround it.
A year after its invention, the colonial powers brought photography to Indonesia, so actually the history of photography in Indonesia is as old as the medium itself. But if we talk specifically about Indonesian photography, I think we are still “becoming.” Even with this deep history of the medium in Indonesia, still very little is written about it.
Your work has always pushed the boundaries of photography and representation, and is obviously influenced by performance, installation and other artistic disciplines. What is your relationship to photography today?
Since college I have been really interested in the history of international art movements - Dada, avant-garde movements, and the international movements that emerged in the 1960s and 70s. At one time I was really only interested in specific movements in Indonesia - Gerekan Seni Rupa Baru (GSRB - The New Art Movement - a group of artist in Indonesia that emerged in Yogya and Bandung in the 1970s) and PIPA (Kepribadian Apa). Only recently have I become more interested in Indonesian art history, which is all very interesting when considering the social and political complexities of the nation, and I realized I still have a great deal to learn. When I work, I treat the camera as a medium for expression, and to recognize the character of the medium at the same time, but I also try to depart from the character of this medium. After spending time with video, I am now returning to photography with a fuller understanding of world photography. Now that I am older, I can appreciate many more approaches to the medium.I really try to keep my knowledge up to date, to remain relevant in the changing issues and values of the day, to continue to question the time I live in right now. I try to develop a photographic practice that includes fundamentals but also a more “post-photographic” practice.
Do you have new projects you are working on now?
From late 2019 through 2020, I worked on a project documenting life in Jogja during the pandemic. For this project I worked as a more traditional photographer, using my camera to record things going on around me. I worked collaboratively with a friend to finish this, the end result being an audio/visual piece called Jogja Kronik. Nowadays I mostly practice a kind of street photography, all done virtually by taking a walk with the Google street view application. If I find interesting things - moments, objects, or some kind of strange composition or glitch - I will make a screenshot to document my "visit.”.