Osvalde Lewat is a Cameroonian documentary maker and photographer, who began her career as a journalist. She was born in Garoua, Cameroon, but has lived in the DRC, on and off over a period of eight years. Couleur Nuit is a book and exhibition project documenting her journeys into the dark of the Congolese night, from Kinshasa to Lubumbashi.
The people Lewat photographs belong to the everyday; from young girls hanging out to regular workers on the night shift.
None of the pictures are retouched; the focus is on chance encounters with strangers, as well as the light that flickers in the middle of the night.
During her expeditions, Osvalde Lewat realised that in Africa often no one bothers to show people the photos that are taken of them. She decided to keep on going back to show the images to the people whose lives she’d captured.
Read Osvalde Lewat’s TRUE Africa 100
Visit osvaldelewat.com
The book Congo Couleur Nuit, featuring text in French and English, has just been published by Phenix, and the exhibition Couleur Nuit de Osvalde Lewat will be at the Galerie Marie-Laure de l’Ecotais, 49 rue de Seine, 75006 Paris, until October 20, 2015.