A group of girls dancing el Jarabe del Valle, Cuautepec, Mexico City, from the "Ben'n Yalhalhj/ Soy de Yalalag/ I'm from Yalalag" series

About the Photographer

Fabián, Citlali

Mexico, b. 1988

Yalateca, Mexican visual artist and storyteller Citlali Fabián has in large part dedicated her photo practice to documenting—and honoring—the inherent beauty of women from her Indigenous heritage. Social systems based on colorism exist worldwide and have a particular impact on women in the ways that our images are either centered, or not; valued and protected, or not; affirmed, or pressured to change. In her ongoing Ben’n Yalhalhj / Soy de Yalálag / I’m from Yalalag series, Fabián creates a community-wide family photo album where Indigenous women are centered and celebrated. This project began as an exploration of culturally specific, visual language through photographic images based on a conversation between the artist and her Zapotec-speaking grandmother. There’s a trust that’s extended to Fabián by her photo subjects as she documents daily-life images from their shared home. Functioning as a family photo album, Ben’n Yalhalhj also includes the community’s men. Poignantly, Fabián uses photography to explore ways of addressing identity and connections with territory, migration, and community bonds.

Fabián is a 2020 Visura mentee and a Magnum fellow. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Mexico’s National Institute of Fine Arts and is held at the Toledo Collection, the Patricia Conde Collection, and the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University.