Tanya Aguiñiga uses sculpture, textiles, performance and collaborative making to address border experience and community relationships. Her public practice includes participatory projects and the collective AMBOS, whose work has shared authorship.
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Independent directory profile. Big Art Partners does not claim to represent this artist.
sculpture, installation, performance, social practice
Based in
Los Angeles, California, United States
Profile
individual
Project participation
Not documented; confirm with the artist, studio or estate.
Research notes for project planning
What the project record tells us
2016 participatory border project.
Participation records an everyday crossing
Aguiñiga’s biography identifies Border Quipu as a 2016 project in which commuters contributed knotted fabric while crossing between Mexico and the United States. The accumulated textile makes individual participation visible within a larger shared experience. For a public-art brief, that precedent shifts attention toward the conditions under which people can contribute, including the time and explanation required within an existing routine. The resulting object and the process of gathering it should be planned together, with a clear account of what participation means to the work.
How can participation fit the contributors’ existing routine while preserving the meaning of their individual contributions?
Big Art Partners planning prompt
Undated work account; performance material is not generalized as a public interactive object.
Material can make a performance deliberately difficult
The artist’s account of Metabolizing the Border describes blown-glass wearables incorporating remnants of border fencing. The glass sandals are intentionally difficult to use, connecting bodily effort to the experience under discussion. This is a specific performance premise, not a general invitation for public use of fragile objects. For an institutional presentation, the planning conversation should establish whether visitors encounter a live action, an object display or documentation, because each format changes how the material’s physical difficulty and emotional meaning become understandable.
Will the audience encounter performance, objects or documentation, and how will that format communicate the material’s intended difficulty?
Big Art Partners planning prompt
Collective context; founder identity does not imply sole authorship.
Credit and process extend beyond one artist
AMBOS describes itself as a collective founded in 2016, working across the border through craft, care and mutual support. Aguiñiga’s role as founder therefore sits within an ongoing collaborative structure. For planning, this is a reason to discuss participants, authorship and the resources needed for making before defining the final installation alone. A public project informed by this precedent should identify how the collaboration is represented and sustained, so that the visible outcome remains connected to the people and processes through which it was produced.
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Tanya Aguiñiga is based in Los Angeles, California, United States. Documented disciplines include sculpture, installation, performance, social practice.
