Photographer Odette Barajas and her husband, architect Mario Macalpin, at their home in Mexicali, the capital of Baja California, Mexico.
Odette Barajas about her life on the U.S.-Mexico Border:
“Living on the border, being a native of Mexicali, with the gradual evolution of a divided conscience, that belonging to a region that at birth intended not to look at the fence because both cities were half-sisters: Mexicali-Calexico, daughters of Mexico and California.
To grow up with the familiar habit of going regularly “to the other side” like one who crosses the neighbor’s fence, sharing the generalized dream that “over there everything is better” until the awakening of the critical awareness, which coincides perhaps with sufficient age for the independence of the family passport and make you responsible for your own visa.
Little by little we are recognizing ourselves as a hybrid culture when we compare ourselves with the rest of the country, first with identity crisis, then with the rebellious stage of no longer seeing towards the north and “wanting to be Mexican”, turning towards the south. Now, from our global culture, the notion of the frontier or border line has been expanded.”
CURRICULUM VITAE
Name: Ana Odette Barajas Ainza
Place of Birth: Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico
Since her first solo exhibition “El Teatro de la Calle” in 1991 Odette Barajas has continued to work in photography independently covering various genres such as photo documentary, the photo journalism and the photo construction; In addition to performing an intense work in teaching in the field of visual arts.
She has studied at a bachelor’s level in administration and artistic education, as well as graduate works in photography and cultural promotion.
Her work has been recognized, among others, with the first place in the Bienal Plástica of Baja California in 1995; With the obtaining of the scholarships of the State Fund for Culture and the Arts of Baja California Jóvenes Creadores in 1994; Creators with Trajectory in 2001; PACMYC Scholarship in 1996 and 2010. Her work has been selected for international pinhole photography in Buenos Aires, Argentina 2014 and 2016; In Lima, Peru 2016 and in Monterrey, N.L. 2016
Individually and collectively, Odette Barajas has participated in multiple exhibitions, including: “4 projects in Mexico” at Kunstverein München, Berlin, Germany 2013; “Secondary inspection” art selection in Baja California at Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. 2013; “Radical Localims, Art, Video and Culture from Pueblo Nuevos’s Mexicali Rose” at Artists Space, New York, NY 2012; I and II International Book Fair of artist in the Library Mexico and the Center of the Image, during the festivals of fotoseptiembre 2009 and 2011 respectively in Mexico, DF; “Contemporary Mexican Artists” Gallery Dos Damas in San Diego California; “Del Río Amarillo al Colorado” in Mexicali, Tijuana, Monterrey, Hermosillo and in Mexico City at the metro station Tacuba; Fourth International Photography Salon “Abelardo Rodríguez Antes” in La Lisa, Cuba and in the “Ventanas” Project in Madrid, Spain; In addition, her work is part of the Iberoamerican Image Fund, in Havana, Cuba and the collection of the Museum of the Californias of the Tijuana Cultural Center CECUT.
She has monographic publications such as “Del río Amarillo al Colorado” book No.6 within the collection Historias de la Ciudad de Editorial Desea, S.A. And “Retratos Neopoblanos” edited by Cetys University, Historical Archive of Baja California and PACMYC. Her work was published in the Italian magazine PRIVATE No. 20 dedicated to the new Mexican photography, 160 years of Photography in Mexico by Editorial OCEANO; Roots, Private edition of BBVA Bancomer.
As a teacher she has more than a decade of experience teaching photography at basic and advanced levels, as well as theory and history of the visual arts. She has carried out the project Diagnosis of the state of conservation of the photo library of the Historical Archive of Baja California in 2002 and until 2013 collaborated closely with that institution in the iconographic investigation and cataloging of the photographic collection. Since 2009, it is part of the collective MADRECITAS, which organizes international exhibitions of small format and recently the collective CHICALI PINHOLERO dedicated to the promotion of pinhole photography, analogue and alternative processes.
Contacts & more information: Odettebarajas@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/chicalipinholero
www.facebook.com/madrecitas (MADRECITAS Small Format Exhibition)
All photos @ Stefan Falke www.stefanfalke.com
LA FRONTERA: Artists along the U.S.- Mexico Border 
Congrats Teacher!
Your work it´s fantastic.
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