Tanya Aguiñiga: Crafting Lineage | Art21 "Extended Play"

(birds singing)

(ukulele strums)

(birds singing)

(ukulele strums)

Growing up on the border,

I didn't know that art was something

that I could do to sustain myself.

There's not a lot of art

that seems accessible
to working class people.

Why does art have to be so hierarchical?

Why does it have to be such a narrow view

of what humanity actually is,

and what humanity is
actually experiencing?

-I would cut the tape...

That's how I got into
studying furniture design.

I really just wanted to do something

that was more working class,

but still artistic.

Learning how to work with wood and metal

seemed like a very worthwhile thing.

I could have a physical
and emotional outlet.

But also, my dad could
look at something and say,

"Oh my god, you're a really good welder."

- [Father, in Spanish] Good morning!

- [Mother, in Spanish] Good morning!

- [Father, in Spanish] I would like a seafood taco.

- [Aguiñiga, in Spanish] Do you want one too, Mom?

- [Mother, in Spanish] Yes.

(ukulele strums)

[Aguiñiga] When I studied craft,

you knew the lineage of who taught who

three, four generations down.

You knew everybody you studied with.

Like, "Oh, this person makes work this way

because they learned from this master."

Which is something that
I think a lot of us,

whose parents migrated,

don't have.

We don't have lineages.

I know my grandma's name, and that's it.

It's kind of this really nice thing

to connect you back to
different types of

histories and traditions.

I ended up studying under Wendy Maruyama,

a really amazing Japanese-American
woman, who's deaf,

who was one of the first women

to get a Master's in furniture design,

and makes a lot of really provocative work

about identity and gender.

(birds singing)

(soft instrumental music)

By having educators
that I could relate to,

that I could kind of
see part of my struggles

with identity mirrored in,

helped me flip a switch
that led to where I am now.

Learning about fiber,

learning about fabric,

learning about textiles,

helps you take ownership

of how you present yourself to the world.

Once you learn how to
make your own fabric,

make your own clothes,

you will be a lot more self-sufficient,

but also have authorship of self.

(soft instrumental music)

(traffic whirls)

(soft xylophone music)

I think art can offer different ways

of getting to an answer.

It can offer different possibilities.

Generative space.

Power over your own identity.

(soft xylophone music)

For a lot of us that are marginalized,

or seen as others,

we can explore different
ways of telling our stories.

(soft xylophone music)

(car horn honks)

(soft xylophone music)