Born in Mexico City in 1955, Guillermo Gómez-Peña moved to the United States in 1978. He studied Linguistics and Latin American literature at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma, Mexico City, and art at California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles. From 1983 to 1990, he lived in the San Diego-Tijuana border region. Having obtained double nationality, since 1999 he lives between the United States and Mexico. With a body of work embracing mixed genres and experimental languages, Gómez-Peña practises performance, experimental radio, installation, video and photography. He is the author of essays and experimental poetry, and the founder, together with other creators, of the Border Arts Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo (BAW/TAF). He was director of the international performance group La Pocha Nostra.

His performances, always provocative and controversial, are a rebuttal of all the cultural and colonial clichés and prejudices. The North-South relationship is at the core of all his work, together with the concepts of immigration, miscegenation, the confrontation between different cultures and the politics of language. Gómez-Peña combines his radical aesthetics with political activism, always with a heavy dose of Spanglish humour. With a great ability to place cultural borders at the centre of his practice and to marginalise the supposedly 'dominant culture', his proposals do not leave anyone indifferent. Critics refer to his 'Chicano cyber punk performances' and 'ethno-techno art'.

His performances and artworks have been seen in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Russia, Australia and South Africa. Among his better-known projects are Border Brujo (1988-89), Couple in the Cage (1992-93), Naftazteca TV (1994), Mexarcane International (1994-95), Temple of Confessions (1995-96), The Mexterminator Project (1997-99), The Living Museum of Fetish/ized Identities (1999-2002), Posnacional Series (2013-20), Borderscape (2000) and Gómez-Peña's Casa Museo: A Living Museum and Archive (2021). He has collaborated with performance artists such as Coco Fusco, James Luna, Tania Bruguera and Sara Shelton Mann, among many others. His works are part of the collections of major institutions such as MoMA, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; National Museum of Mexican Art, Mexico City; Tate Modern, London; and MACBA, Barcelona.