Cleveland Institute of Art, NYC-based Flux Factory announce inaugural cohort of Regional Artist Mobility Program participants

Image: From left, artists Rachel Ferber, Li-Ming Hu, Mike Meier and Itala Aguilera represent the inaugural Regional Artist Mobility Program artists.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 4, 2026

CLEVELAND—The Cleveland Institute of Art and Flux Factory, a New York City-based arts organization, are excited to announce the first artists selected to participate in the Regional Artist Mobility Program (RAMP), a new initiative to strengthen inter-regional exchange between U.S. artists by supporting professional development, facilitating creative dialogue and building cooperation among artists from different regions.

Two CIA faculty artists—interdisciplinary artist and designer Rachel Ferber, an assistant professor in the Foundation program for first-year students, and painter Mike Meier, an assistant professor in the Painting program—will spend six weeks in residence at Flux Factory in May and June 2026. Their residency will provide unparalleled opportunities for professional development as they explore New York’s art institutions and galleries, meet their NYC colleagues, create new work and share their work at Flux IV.

Two Flux Factory community artists—textile artist and designer Itala Aguilera and interdisciplinary artist and former actor Li-Ming Hu—will spend six weeks in residence at CIA in September and October 2026. During their residencies, they will be immersed in the Cleveland arts community, meet with CIA students, create new work and share their creative practices with the local community.

Each of these four artists were chosen through an open call conducted by Flux Factory and CIA. They were selected based on the quality of their work, potential benefit of participation in the residency program, and commitment to sharing their skills and knowledge with students and the local arts community.

Meet the RAMP artists:

Itala Aguilera, Flux Factory community artist

Itala Aguilera studied Fashion and Textile Design at CENTRO in her hometown, Mexico City, before her practice shifted to the visual arts. In 2022, Aguilera joined Flux Factory, where she would later co-curate The Golden Colonel and produce—with support from a New York State Council on the Arts grant—her solo show, Tierra Mojada (Wet Land). She also exhibited and performed at the Textile Arts Center.

"I'm excited to work on new pieces in the different workshops at CIA, and to learn how to use the new tools I will have access to," Aguilera says. "I am hoping to find new opportunities for collaboration with the CIA students and the artistic community in Cleveland."

Rachel Ferber, Cleveland Institute of Art faculty artist

Rachel Ferber is an interdisciplinary artist, designer and educator. She integrates domestic waste and found forms into videos, sculptures and textiles that explore sticky intersections of power, performance and sustainability through the lens of commodified private space. In addition, she runs an experimental natural dye project called The Dye Bath and is one half of the art and design initiative NEW NEW NEW.

"I'm really honored to have this time at Flux Factory—this opportunity is such a gift. I'm especially excited to work with Materials for the Arts, connect with the other Flux artists and immerse myself in all the arts and culture that New York offers," Ferber says. "During my residency, I will continue the development of ephemeral pigments derived from food scraps and am planning a multimedia performance-workshop hybrid that activates these forms through play and experimentation."

Li-Ming Hu, Flux Factory community artist

Li-Ming Hu is an artist, recovering actor and sometime writer born in Aotearoa/New Zealand currently based in Queens, New York. Often employing a carnivalesque sensibility, her work engages with the imperatives of high-performance culture, drawing on her background in the entertainment industry to explore the production and performance of subjectivity within contemporary cultural economies.

"I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to participate in this residency and excited to use this time to experiment with new processes and engage with arts communities in Cleveland," Hu says.

Mike Meier, Cleveland Institute of Art faculty artist

Mike Meier's work examines media, art history and popular culture to explore the American psyche. He earned a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. His practice merges fine art traditions with raw, reactionary energy, drawing on satire, emotional intensity and cultural critique to probe power, violence and belief systems as American identity.

"I'm excited to be included in the inaugural residency collaboration between Flux Factory and the Cleveland Institute of Art. I hope to draw from this dynamic experience to enrich student instruction and support as a professor working across multiple practices, while engaging my professional studio work in new and expanded ways," Meier says. "I'm especially grateful to CIA's Reinberger Gallery team and the Flux Factory team for making this exchange possible. This kind of support for artists is paramount to sustainability and growth as a creative professional, and it's a real privilege to participate in something like this. I look forward to the future of RAMP and what it will afford to our community at CIA."

Flux Factory and CIA's Exhibitions + Galleries department will organize public programs, including the group exhibition scheduled to open in November 2026 in CIA's Reinberger Gallery.

The Regional Artist Mobility Program is made possible with the support of The Kettering Family Foundation.

Contact

Cleveland Institute of Art
Michael C. Butz, Director of College Communications + External Relations
mcbutz@cia.edu / 216.421.7404

Cleveland Institute of Art

The Cleveland Institute of Art is a private, nonprofit college of art and design that has been the training ground for countless students who have gone on to make important contributions to the fields of creativity and innovation since it opened in 1882 as the Western Reserve School of Design for Women. Its students have designed internationally recognized products, their artwork has been exhibited in major museums and private collections around the world, and their entertainment media has been enjoyed by audiences and game players for generations. It enrolls about 550 students nationally and internationally and has a faculty of about 100 full-time and adjunct members, all of whom are practicing artists, designers and scholars. 

Reinberger Gallery

Reinberger Gallery, led by Director of Exhibitions + Galleries Nikki Woods, serves artists at all stages of their careers by supporting the creative work of professional artists and serving as an educational resource for Cleveland Institute of Art students, faculty and community members. It provides quality exhibition opportunities in its 3,000-square-foot space located on the first floor of CIA’s George Gund Building and encourages artistic growth and experimentation through well-presented exhibitions, events and lectures.

Flux Factory

Flux Factory’s mission is to support emerging artists through Artist-in-Residencies and Exhibitions, education and collaborative opportunities. Flux is an artist-led space that builds sustainable communities and retains creative vitality in NYC. Since 1994 Flux has hosted over 300 Artists-in-Residence, both local and international, as well as staging over 700 exhibitions across all disciplines. Flux’s home in Long Island City is a creative hive that incubates experimentation with collaborative processes. Flux Factory regularly hosts international artists and currently has two studio locations in Long Island City, which can accommodate up to 22 artists. Flux Factory is supported with grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, NY Department of Cultural Affairs, and numerous other international and U.S. foundations.