Fabián, Citlali

Mexican, b. 1988

BiographyYalateca, 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 2024 Bertha Foundation Grantee, 2021 Photography and Social Justice Magnum Fellow, a National Geographic Society explorer, and 2020 Visura mentee. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Mexico’s National Institute of Fine Arts and is held in the Toledo Collection, the Patricia Conde Collection, and the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University.