Contact Sheet 101 - Lewis Watts - South to West Oakland

Contact Sheet 101 is a photography publication produced by Light work, a non-profit, artist-run photography center in Syracuse, NY. This issue features 28 duotone reproductions of photographs by Lewis Watts. Lewis Watts' photographs explore evidence of culture, history and life as reflected on the surface of environments inhabited and used primarily by people of African descent in the neighborhoods of West Oakland, California. The West Oakland community is a fertile place both visually and culturally. Although usually ignored or reflected only negatively by the media, the faade of this neighborhood has been altered and consciously personalized in ad hoc ways to reflect it's dynamic past and ever- changing present.