Wimo Ambala Bayang (b. 1976) is a visual artist and pioneer in experimental photography and video art in Indonesia. He graduated in Photography from the Indonesian Art Institute in Yogyakarta. In 2002 he co-founded MES 56, an artist collective exploring photography at the intersection with other disciplines, where he continues to be an active member, a space which now runs as a non-profit institution and community. In 2004, Ambala founded Video Battle, an online video compilation produced and distributed independently, currently activated by a new generation of video makers.
In his artistic practice, Ambala shifts between photography, video, and object making to address and challenge the dialectics of reality and illusion, comprehension and experience, or presence and absence in image-making by always redefining the meaning of objects through multiple and uncanny visual perspectives. Using participatory approaches, staged photography, digital montage, or street snapshots, he often creates fictitious settings where ready-made, designed objects, or outdoor bodies become the central elements, performing and shaping new subjectivities and ways of being perceived. Inspirited by conceptual art reasoning and shifting art predicaments in the regions at the change of the millennium, Ambala tries to broaden the epistemological premises of photography as image-making, while constantly playing with its multifarious possibilities and media intersections.
His works have been exhibited extensively, such as in Third Kumming Biennale, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai, Hong-Gah Museum Taipei, Ruang Rupa Jakarta, National Museum of Singapore, Museum of Art Seoul, and many more. He also undergone various residencies, and contributed as curator and artist for international exhibitions and publications on Indonesian photography. Wimo Ambala lives and works in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.