Material witness

Binational artist and Loewe Foundation Craft Prize finalist Tanya Aguiñiga weaves new narratives for borderless creativity

- HARRIET LLOYD-SMITH

Tanya Aguiñiga knows a thing or two about living in flux. From the age of four, each morning at 3.30am, she travelled across the US-Mexico border from her home in Tijuana to her school in San Diego. 'It's crazy, logistically. But it's also crazy, psychologically and emotionally,' she tells me via Zoom from her LA studio. 'At the time, kind of similar to now, there were massive amounts of migrants at the border up against the fence trying to get to the US side. We had to navigate pretty difficult experiences on our way. There was incredible desperation on the faces of adults, and as a child, it's super difficult to deal with.

At the age of 18, Aguiñiga moved in with her grandmother in San Diego and settled in the US. 'In a lot of our border towns, you're constantly part of whatever journeys people are on. Mostly, that involves people's really tragic journeys to get to the border,' says the artist, who, because she was born in the US, was able to cross freely. 'I constantly thought about my privilege, and I had a lot of guilt for being able to cross back and forth. It does, obviously, shape who you become.' Aguiñiga's wide-ranging practice spans sculpture, furniture and fashion design, immersive installations, performance, and community-based projects. Her art is far from a solitary pursuit; her studio of seven years, a World War II Quonset hut in LA's Elysian Valley, has become a meeting point of sorts, for workshops, craft fairs, and to exhibit the work of other artists, particularly those marginalised. When I came to see it, I thought it was the most amazing studio space I had ever seen,' she says. 'People are always like: "Are you in a spaceship?"'