Artists celebrate culture and community at “West Oakland Matters” event Saturday

When photographer Malcolm Ryder first moved to Oakland, the place he saw through his camera lens was different from what he saw on the news.

“I became super sensitive to the incredible disparity between what was actually in Oakland and how it is usually portrayed in mass media. The mass media portrayal is not just borderline hostile, it is outright hostile. It doesn’t even make room for the possibility that the city could be or can be a better place,” he said.

So he set out to amend the narrative.

Through the years, that has meant capturing physical spaces where people, and their creativity, have altered their environments — splashes of bright graffiti in buildings slated for demolition, colorfully dilapidated theaters and skate parks covered in street art. 

That has also meant critically examining the role of art in activism and in society as a whole.

“Artists in Oakland, all over and in particular West Oakland, do more of the communicating about the good of West Oakland than any other group that I’m aware of,” Ryder said.

To this end, Ryder, along with other photographers, artists, filmmakers, musicians, designers, journalists and writers will be putting on an arts and activism event called “West Oakland Matters.” Throughout the day on Saturday, there will be photo exhibitions, art sales, a fashion show and a panel of artists speaking about their work.

“We were really sensitive to West Oakland’s opportunity to express itself on its own terms, with the creativity that’s already there,” Ryder said.

Traci Bartlow, a West Oakland artist, business owner and resident sees the show as an opportunity to make sure the stories of those who made the area an appealing place to live don’t get lost to gentrification.

The goal, according to Ryder and  co-producer Constance Hale, is to have the voices of West Oaklanders be heard first.

“The change that we’re trying to effect through West Oakland Matters, through gathering all these artists together and celebrating the cultural legacy of West Oakland, is partly to say to city officials, big time developers and gentrifiers that there is another way that West Oakland might be revitalized,” Hale said.

The show will include photographs Ryder took during Black Lives Matter protests and the COVID-19 lockdown in Oakland. Ken Light, a longtime photojournalist and professor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, will also be showing photographs he took in West Oakland during the 1970s.

Light’s photos highlight West Oakland as it once was, a vibrant, working-class enclave.

Jimi Evins, who has lived and made art in West Oakland for decades, said the show will be an opportunity for West Oaklanders to share their work with their own community. Despite the challenges that have come with rising rent prices, Evins believes that artists, and their work, are a vital part of the West Oakland community. He hopes that someday there will be a more permanent gallery for artists to showcase their work.

“It would be great if there was a place where people could come see art based in West Oakland, so they can feel that we have art too,” Evins said.

Ryder hopes that West Oakland Matters will set things in motion.

“As far as we’re concerned, this is hopefully and potentially the first of this event and it will become a regular thing in the community, produced by the community,” he said.

The event is from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m., at 7th West, 1255 Seventh St. While the show is free to be accessible to the community, organizers are accepting donations through their website. 

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