About Yalala

Yalala is a Zapotec and Queer owned retailer and publisher based in Los Angeles, California. Yalala is a phonetic simplification of our previous name Yeaj Yalhalhj meaning "the flower from the valley of scattered mountains" in our native Zapotec language (Bene Wurash). At Yalala, our mission is to preserve, promote, and disseminate the rich traditions of Indigenous ceramicists from Oaxaca, Mexico. The artists we work with reveal the dedication and ancestral knowledge required to reflect the cultural identity and beauty of ceramics. They do so by creating “ancient” pottery through inherited knowledge of identifying minerals in soils, foraging clay from nature to make into materials, and creating homemade kilns. This self-sustaining cultural knowledge is being threatened by deforestation and commodification, therefore it is crucial that there be a project from within the Indigenous community here in Los Angeles. It is necessary to share native voices to prevent erasure and we strongly believe that generations of oral history are embedded in our roster of artists.Read their story