Artist Talk & Performance: Tanya Aguiñiga and Porfirio Gutiérrez

Join the Fowler Museum for an in-gallery conversation with artists Tanya Aguiñiga and Porfirio Gutiérrez focused on the historical significance of cochineal, its role in contemporary Indigenous communities, and its ecological implications in today’s global context. Following the talk, Aguiñiga and Gutiérrez will collaborate on an artwork. Witness the dynamic interplay of tradition and innovation as these acclaimed artists blend their unique styles and techniques in real time, weaving threads of cultural heritage and artistic expression into a tapestry of great beauty.

Tanya Aguiñiga was born in 1978 in San Diego, California; raised in Tijuana, Mexico; and lives in Los Angeles. An artist, designer, and craftsperson working with traditional craft materials, she collaborates frequently with other artists and activists to create sculptures, installations, performances, and community-based art projects. Drawing upon her upbringing as a binational citizen who daily crossed the border from Tijuana to San Diego for school, Aguiñiga’s practice speaks to her divided identity, and aspires to tell the larger and often invisible stories of the transnational community.

Porfirio Gutiérrez is a California-based Zapotec textile artist and natural dyer, born in 1978 and raised in the historic Zapotec textile community of Teotitlán del Valle in Oaxaca, Mexico. Porfirio grew up immersed in color, surrounded by the wildness of Oaxaca’s mountains, and steeped in the knowledge of plants used for healing and color. His dedicated his life’s work to revitalizing and preserving traditional Zapotec natural dye techniques, reinterpreting traditional textiles and materials in his creations.

Presented in conjunction with the Fowler Museum at UCLA's PST ART: Art & Science Collide exhibition Sangre de Nopal/Blood of the Nopal: Tanya Aguiñiga and Porfirio Gutiérrez en Conversación/in Conversation.