Tanya Aguiñiga (b. 1978) is a furniture designer whose work is informed by the complex interactions between Tijuana and San Diego, the cities in which she has spent most of her life. While studying design at San Diego State University, she began working as an educator at the San Diego Museum of Art and created collaborative installations with the Border Arts Workshop, an artists’ group that engages the languages of activism and community-based public art.

After earning an MFA in furniture design from Rhode Island School of Design in 2005, Aguiñiga settled in Los Angeles where she designs and hand makes all of her work. Her sensitivity to materials and interest in creating furniture that responds to the user’s spatial needs have resulted in a playful and organic modernist approach to form. She hopes to deepen her commitment to ethical design by working with traditional artisans, connecting local craft traditions with a global economy.

She has been an artist in residence at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts and The Native Art Center in Fairbanks, Alaska. Her work has been exhibited from Mexico City to Milan and she was recently named a United States Artists Target Fellow in the field of Crafts and Traditional Arts. Tanya Aguiñiga’s designs are available for viewing and purchase through A+R, Specific, Propeller, The Future Perfect and Park Life, or by contacting agents Ford&Ching.