Tanya Aguiñiga

Place: San Diego

Born: 1978

Biography:

Tanya Aguiñiga is a Mexican-American artist, designer, and activist born in 1978 in San Diego, California. She spent her childhood in Tijuana, Mexico, and traveled daily across the border to attend school in San Diego. Aguiñiga received a BA in Applied Design from San Diego State University and an MFA in furniture design from Rhode Island Institute of Design. Her work often combines modern design with elements of traditional craft technique and activism, using natural materials such as beeswax, wool, and human hair to create furniture, textiles, wearable pieces, sculptures, and site-specific installations. Aguiñiga has received numerous awards, including the United States Artists Target Fellow in the field of Crafts and Traditional Arts, the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures and Creative Capital Grant, and the 2018 Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities.