Over the borderline

Tanya Aguiñiga’s bicultural art is for more than art’s sake

By Nona Willis Aronowitz
Published: August 28th, 2009 | 4:40pm

For some, furniture and fine arts are two different realms — one is everyday and practical, the other meant to collect dust at a gallery or museum. But Los Angeles-based furniture designer Tanya Aguiñiga blends the two seamlessly. In fact, Aguiñiga is an expert in dual identities, growing up in the border city of Tijuana and commuting every day to the United States for school, and later illegally transporting raw materials to build an entire community. Aguiñiga tells us about her childhood, her smuggling tricks, and how she melded her two loves—activism and art.

How’d you get into making furniture?
I wanted to do something that was really beautiful and creative, but I wasn’t okay with making art for art’s sake. When I first started out, I was doing a lot of installation art. In the beginning, I kept the two practices really separate. Through fine art, I’d take care of the “heavy” stuff — my emotions — whereas furniture was more about angles. But then I realized that [furniture-making] could be an expression of art, and it could also be very meditative and combine my different interests.

On your website, you say that your work is informed by border culture. What do you mean?
Until I was 18, I lived right across the US border in Tijuana. I managed to stay in school in San Diego by using fake addresses and crossing the border every day for 14 years. I definitely would not be the way that I am had I not experienced both sides; two different countries, every day. It’s a whole different way of relating to your surroundings, and not taking anything for granted. For instance, you’d turn on the water and you were like, “Yay! There’s water today!” The fact that you can drink water from the sink in U.S. is crazy to most Mexicans. It had a huge affect on the way I use and appreciate materials. In Tijuana, nothing gets thrown away. I really wanted to find some form of expression that had a purpose and a function, like furniture making.

What about the community center in Tijuana that ran on the United States’ trash?
It was called the Binational Artist Collaborative. When I joined, someone found out about a community of squatters in Mexico run by women that was built mostly from garage doors that were being discarded from the U.S. Once people update to automatic doors, they’re sent to Mexico. We used things like tires for barricading, mattress springs for fences, car doors for another fence.

We figured that the best way to bring attention to anything is to give newspapers a good photo opportunity. We found a partnership with them, and through arts-based projects, we were bringing national and international attention to them, as well as provide services to the community. Before, they had no social services, schools, and hospitals. We had to keep like “oh, don’t worry, it’s just an art project,” in order to not get arrested.

So you never got caught?
I never had any problems, even doing large-scale installations. It’s easier when you’re a woman to smuggle stuff across the border — things like huge wood, used clothes, building materials, and blankets — just as long as it was me or another woman who spoke Spanish. If you just talk innocently and throw on some lipstick, it’s a lot easier to get stuff done if you work girl magic.

What’s a piece of yours that reflects your relationship with the border?
I have a piece called “Shadow Trio.” It’s half of a chair, table, and lamp that attaches to the wall, and its shadow creates the second half. It never functions on its own; it needs both worlds in order to exist. It’s a subdued poetic statement with a lot of context.

Do you have a favorite piece of furniture?
Yes, it’s called “Lineation.” It was my first piece that was installation-based. It was joining my love for installation and furniture pieces. There are five chairs that are all white and hand-woven, all the strings become loose and attach themselves to the ceiling. They sort of use the materials of the chair itself to create its own environment.

I had been fighting my more sculptural tendencies, but I was like, “You know, fuck it I can do installation furniture, too.” My art has stories behind it. I know why a certain bent was a certain way. It all comes directly out of personal experiences.

Check out aguinigadesign.com to learn more about Tanya Aguiñiga’s work.