One of the biggest influences in my personal life has been my teacher, mentor, and friend, Tanya Aguiñiga. Earlier this year she began a large, multi-national collaborative project, which in my opinion, is an excellent example of using fibers as a medium to express/highlight something in the world that is important but largely misunderstood or overlooked.
On August 5, 2016, Tanya Aguiñiga’s project AMBOS was launched. AMBOS, standing for Art Made Between Opposite Sides, is her latest community-based fiber project to generate dialogues about identity, culture, and gender. Initiated by Aguiñiga and funded by Creative Capital, AMBOS was a series of artists’ projects throughout the month of August created to recontextualize borders and generate a localized hub for international collaboration. AMBOS was a joint effort by artists from both sides of the border; they included Tanya Aguiñiga, Cog*nate Collective, Relaciones Inesperadas, and Ingrid Hernandez. Each artist worked to create dialogue about the border through their own mediums; Aguiñiga naturally chose fibers.
Raised in Tijuana, Mexico a few blocks from the border that cuts into the ocean between the United States and Mexico, Aguiñiga, an American citizen, spent her time from ages 4-18 crossing the border to go to school in the US. Everyday hundreds of thousands living in Mexico wait an average of 2-3 hours to pass through the border.
“Conversations at the Crossing // Dialogue in Transit curated by Cog•nate collective. Border (Counter) Narratives w/ Rafa Esparza”
“The majority are US citizens, crossing in isolation and operating with the stigma of living in Mexico while attending school, working, or shopping in the US.”
AMBOS, meaning “both” in Spanish, is an effort to humanize the border crossing experience by using the space and time between the two sides to create a collective piece for the community, by the community.
“Since the 1920s, craftsmen and vendors have been selling to border commuters on the Mexican side. 1,500 vendors now work at the current Mercado de Artesanias, which has been owned and unionized by generations of vendors. At this time the future of the market is uncertain.
It was at this market where AMBOS operated. Aguiñiga’s piece, Quipu Fronterizo or Border Quipu, uses the Pre-Columbian quipu, an Andean organizational system, as the framework to record the daily migrations to the north. Commuters were asked to anonymously tie a knot, it’s two strands representing the US and Mexico’s relationships to one another and themselves.
Each knot was collected daily and tied by volunteers to other knots made that same day.
Photo credit: Gina Clyne Photography
Photo credit: Gina Clyne Photography
The cumulative series of daily bundled knots was then organized into a large-scale quipu and displayed on a billboard above the AMBOS storefront hub. The piece was put together from August 20- 27. The whole project ran from August 5, 2016- August 28, 2016.
Aguiñiga believes these border interventions “help humanize this space and also activate it.”
“It’s important for people to understand that it’s a complex place and we’re normal people, not just a migrating mass,” she says.
Photo credit: Gina Clyne Photography
Aguiñiga plans to continue AMBOS to all 48 US/Mexico border crossings.
For more information please visit: www.ambosproject.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ambosproject
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ambosproject/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ambosproject
All photos used with permission from Tanya Aguiniga and the AMBOS project. Additional photo credits: Gina Clyne Photography.
