Videos
Línea Pak
A project by Tanya Aguiñiga in collaboration with AMBOS as part of the 2021 program, Intergalactix: against isolation/contra el aislamiento.
On November 13, Tanya Aguiñiga and the AMBOS project distributed 500 emergency “Línea Pak” kits along the San Ysidro Gate, within the US/Mexico Border. Línea Pak is an emergency kit that contains a portable unisex urinal, saladitos (salty plums eaten to stay hydrated), granola bars, water, electrolytes, and a petition to the US government. The waiting time to cross into the United States from Tijuana, Mexico averages between 4 and 8 hours, which only worsened during the pandemic as border officials closed lanes “to control” COVID-19. Línea Pak, is a response to the violence created by these racist systems in place that dehumanize people through long processes of surveillance, inspection, approval, systematization, profiling, and data collection implemented by the US Border Patrol. Línea Pak, recuperates a relationship based on mutual aid by providing basic needs to border-crossing communities.
Línea Pak
Un proyecto de Tanya Aguiñiga en colaboración con AMBOS para Intergalactix: against isolation/contra el aislamiento
¡Ya puedes ver el vídeo del proyecto de Tanya Aguiñiga, Línea Pak!
Unete a la causa, firma la petición para crear una fila para ancianxs y discapacitadxs que cruzan la frontera EU/Mexico, aquí.
El 13 de noviembre, Tanya Aguiñiga y AMBOS project distribuyeron 500 paquetes de emergencia llamados “Línea Pak” en el garita de San Ysidro de la frontera EUA/México. Línea PAK es un kit de primeros auxillos que contiene un urinario portátil unisex, saladitos, barras de granola, agua y una petición al gobierno Estadounidense. La fila de espera para cruzar a los EUA desde Tijuana, México, tiene un promedio de 4 a 8 horas, el cual empeoró durante la pandemia cuando los agentes fronterizos cerrarán carriles “para controlar” COVID-19. Línea Pak es una respuesta a la violencia creada por estos sistemas racistas vigentes que deshumanizan a las personas a través de largos procesos de vigilancia, inspección, aprobación, sistematización, elaboración de perfiles y procedimientos de recolección de datos implementados por la patrulla fronteriza estadounidense. Línea Pak recupera una relación basada en la ayuda mutua proveyendo de necesidades básicas a las comunidades que cruzan la frontera.
Photo by/Fotografïa de Gina Clyne
Drawing from the lived experience of the US/Mexico border, Tanya Aguiñiga has developed an experimental approach to craft, using fiber, ceramics, hand-blown glass, and traditional techniques to generate conversations about and across political and cultural divides. Given the ongoing persecution of migrants along the border, and amid an increasingly polarized political climate, Aguiñiga’s upcoming exhibition at the Armory highlights her long-standing commitment to thoughtful and urgent dialogue on immigration politics, transnational identity, and community activism. Along with the Los Angeles debut of some of the artist’s most iconic works, including the binational border-epic AMBOS, this exhibition will also feature a site-specific commission that repurposes the walls of the Armory as an artist-activated loom.
Art21 proudly presents this special extended segment as a complement to the "Borderlands" episode from the tenth season of the "Art in the Twenty-First Century" series. 2021
The New Children's Museum, San Diego, CA, 2019
Inspired by care and empathy tikitiko is designed for toddlers and caregivers to make meaningful connections around abstract, anthropomorphic forms covered in colorful, soft and furry textiles. This space for the littlest Museum visitors will also feature rotating hands-on learning experiences to nurture lifelong developmental skills and family bonding.
Smithsonian American Art Museum: Tanya discusses her work in the exhibition "Disrupting Craft: Renwick Invitational 2018," and how craft can be used to help speak out against oppressive cultures.
This episode of Artbound profiles four California artists who make motherhood a part of their art: Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Andrea Chung, Rebecca Campbell and Tanya Aguiñiga. There's a persisting assumption in contemporary art circles that you can't be a good artist and good mother both. But these artists are working to shatter this cliché, juggling demands of career and family and finding inspiring ways to explore the maternal in their art.
As a 2016 Creative Capital Awardee Tanya presented her project, AMBOS, at the Creative Capital Artist Retreat in New York.
In 2012 the PBS series, Craft in America: episode IX: Crossroads, highlighted Tanya when exploring the intersections of craft, culture, and technology. Featured artists include Tanya Aguiñiga, Lia Cook, Clary Illian, Warren MacKenzie, and Jeff Oestreich. See the full episode here.
For her "Performance Crafting: Felt Me" collaboration with Artbound in 2012, Tanya traded places with her objects, and invited a group of workers to cover her from head-to-toe in felt.
As part of their Cotton Makers series, Cotton: The Fabric of Our Lives®, visited Tanya's studio in 2014 to see her amazing creations using cotton.
MashUp Contemporary Dance Company presents The Art of Geometry (2014) featuring installations by Tanya Aguiñiga.
"Transforming the Everyday: Public Art with Repurposed Items" is the culmination of an six week residency by Tanya Aguiñiga at HOLA in 2013. Tanya worked with the students to create four site-specific installations that activated the classrooms in HOLA’s facilities and the surrounding Los Angeles community.
Tanya Aguiñiga presents her solution for Home for Good and 100,000 Homes Campaign at the GOOD Design LA event April 6, 2011.
As part of their Lecture Series in 2010, Tanya spoke about her practice at California College of the Arts Design and Craft.
Including the largest land border crossing in the world, the US/Mexico border can be seen by some as the perimeter of Latin America, the edge of Mexico, Central and South America. The point at which 300,000 of our identities and histories are checked every day.
Expanding on this notion using a quipu, the Andean Pre-Columbian organizational system of recording history, as a framework to record the daily migrations to the north, Tanya Aguiñiga initiated Quipu Fronterizo/Border Quipu for her segment of AMBOS.
Quipu Fronterizo/Border Quipu engages US/Mexico border commuters on both sides of the border by asking about their experiences and asking them to anonymously tie a knot. The AMBOS team walks among the cars in traffic, pedestrians waiting in line, and surrounding areas of the crossing asking for participation in an art project that focuses on the lives of those who cross the border and/or live in the borderlands. Postcards that read “¿Qué piensas cuando cruzas esta frontera? / What are your thoughts when you cross this border?” are passed out with pencils for participants to record their thoughts in the space provided. All of those who work or live along the border are invited to participate, and asked what they think if they can cross the border, and if not, their opinions on living there. On the opposite side of the postcard, there is a explanation of the exercise for the quipu that we create with the help of participants. Commuters are given two strands of thread and asked to tie them into a knot reflecting their time and emotions spent crossing. The strands represent the US and Mexico’s relationship to one another, our self at either sides of the border, and our own mental state at the point of crossing.
Each knot is collected from commuters and tied to other knots made on the same day. The cumulative series of daily bundled knots is organized into a large-scale quipu and, for the first series of AMBOS in 2016, was displayed on a billboard above the AMBOS storefront hub in view of traffic waiting to cross the border. Quipu Fronterizo/Border Quipu seeks to materialize our connection to one another as a community and make our presence and experiences visible to bi-national audiences.
Currently, the quipu includes 8 columns of knots collected initially at the San Ysidro border crossing in Tijuana. The next five columns were collected and added during the AMBOS road trip in September of 2017, when the AMBOS team travelled to every border crossing from Arizona to the western border of Texas, totalling 18 crossings visited. The Quipu Fronterizo/Border Quipu will be completed in 2018, after the final road trip when the AMBOS team will have visited all the crossings remaining in California and Texas. By bringing Quipu Fronterizo/Border Quipu to all of these crossings, Tanya Aguiñiga, alongside the AMBOS team, will have completed the first exhaustive survey of collective emotion along the US/Mexico border.