One of five new films from Art21’s fall 2021 programming

Shown at work in and around her studio in Los Angeles, California, Tanya Aguiñiga revisits the paths that place her work amongst a history of creative traditions, forging her own journey to making work that speaks to a wider audience.

Aguiñiga, who grew up in Tijuana and migrated to San Diego every day for school, studied furniture design in university as a way to pursue her creative interests, while also learning technical skills like woodworking and welding that her parents would appreciate. Through her studies, she developed a respect for legacies in craft and an admiration for traditions that have been passed down through generations. “A lot of us whose parents’ migrated don’t have lineages,” says the artist. Aguiñiga found inspiration through her teacher, Japanese-American furniture designer Wendy Maruyama, whose provocative work around gender and identity taught her how to explore her own struggles with identity through her work.

Today, Aguiñiga blends her craft and art practices, integrating various materials and methods into her sculptures, installations, and performances. Carrying on the tradition of community collaboration and information sharing, she works with a team of artists and craftspeople, while also including her daughter in hands-on artmaking. Aguiñiga often utilizes fabric and fibers in her work, explaining how working with textiles empowers makers with both self-sufficiency and ownership of their identities. The artist travels to the San Ysidro border crossing point in Tijuana, the site of her 2016 Border Quipu project, and reflects on the ways in which she believes art can be of greater service than she previously understood. “Art can offer different ways of getting to an answer, it can offer different possibilities, generative space, power over your own identity,” says Aguiñiga. “For a lot of us that are marginalized or seen as ‘others,’ it can explore different ways of telling our stories.”