How AMBOS Brings Joy and Healing Across Borders
Tanya Aguiñiga, founder and director of Art Made Between Opposite Sides, explains its show of ‘Coquestas Frutas’ (Sexy Fruit) created by LGBTQ migrants waiting across the Mexican border
Tanya Aguiñiga, founder and director of Art Made Between Opposite Sides, explains its show of ‘Coquestas Frutas’ (Sexy Fruit) created by LGBTQ migrants waiting across the Mexican border
‘I grew up crossing the border every single day to go to school in the US while living in Mexico,’ says Tanya Aguiniga. Since 2016, her project AMBOS (Art Made Between Opposite Sides) has engaged with artists and their communities along the whole length of the US-Mexico border, ‘to figure out if there's any dialogue between the two sides’.
AMBOS makes progress through making – specifically crafting – helping people who are politically, physically and culturally separated to join together. For the past six years, it has also run a trauma-informed ceramics programme with LGBTQ, asylum and refugee shelters in Tijuana, and has plans for a permanent centre in the city.
At Frieze Los Angeles, the powerful, bizarre and beguiling pottery results are on show on AMBOS’s stand under the title ‘Coquestas Frutas’ (Sexy Fruit). ‘We decided to come up with something that was a bit more fun,’ says Aguiniga. ‘And have our students have a good time.’
Discover Ambos’s booth at Frieze Los Angeles, including suggestive ceramics, slogan caps, pins, bags, prints and more with prices ranging from $15 to $250.
All proceeds go to fund the programme, and there are also hats, prints and other merch on the stand.
See more in the video.
Further Information
Frieze Los Angeles, 20 – 23 February 2025, Santa Monica Airport.
Limited full-price tickets available; 10 percent of the value of all newly purchased tickets is being donated to the fire relief efforts.
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