User:Midnightbrightstars/Citlali Fabian

Article Draft
Citlali Fabián (1989) is a photographer known for documenting the Yalalteca community in Yalálag, which is a village in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Biography
Fabián’s parents are Zapotec from the North Sierra region of Oaxaca, Mexico. Her father owned a photography store, which began her interest in photography. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in photography from Universidad Veracruzana, and a Masters in Fine Arts from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She also earned a Photographic Preservation and Collection Management certification from the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York. She lives in the United Kingdom.

Art
While being born outside of Yalálag, she uses the community as a focus in her photography. Most of Fabián’s art is centered around culture and traditions. Fabián has had her work featured in the USA, Mexico, Argentina, and Spain. Her work was featured in The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, Remezcla, Buzzfeed, and IM Magazine.

Soy de Yalálag (I'm From Yalálag)
Fabián’s Soy de Yalálag, is a photo essay completed in Yalálag to show the culture and connect the members of the diaspora. she shows the people of Yalálag in their normal lives, during festivities, and religious moments. Fabián created Soy de Yalalag to communicate with her grandmother, who only spoke native Zapotec language. She received the England Art Council Grant, and National Geographic Society Covid-19 Emergency Fund Grant. She was accepted as a National Geographic Explorer with this photo essay.

Mestiza
Fabián has a photography series titled Mestiza. She focuses on the indigenous Yalalteca women in reference to them as mestizas. She used large portraits of a single woman at a time posing in a powerful way. The hope of these images is to give indigenous women a voice. Images from Mestiza were featured in The New York Times Lens blog’s “13 Stories That Captured Photography in 2018.”

Cuando el viento nos lleva lejos (When the wind takes us far)
The mural titled, Cuando el viento nos lleva lejos, is the product of a collaboration Fabián did with other artists from KDABRA studio. The mural uses the image of Melina, a young girl from Yalálag. The quote that surrounds the image of Melina on the mural is in Spanish but in English reads: “If the wind takes us far away, my sisters will take care of what our ancestors inherited from us.” Fabián’s belief that identity is shaped in relation to other people and the effects of migration, is shown through the mural.