CIA 2025 Alumni Exhibition Explores Present Moment, Seeks New Paths Forward

During uncertain and distressing times—times like these—art plays a consequential role. It reflects, shapes and contextualizes what’s happening in the world around us, giving voice to intense and sometimes overwhelming feelings.

Equally significant are the ways art also can reveal different, better ways forward. However dire times like these might feel, they’re also changeable—a paradigm we’re often reminded of thanks to artists’ creative imaginations and interpretations of social reality.

Those themes will be central to Cleveland Institute of Art’s (CIA) 2025 Alumni Exhibition, Holding Up the Mirror, which seeks to explore our present moment and reflect the various ways artists imagine new paths forward for humanity while holding space for truth, change and collective care. The exhibition opens from 6 to 8 pm on Friday, June 20, in Reinberger Gallery and remains on view through Friday, August 8.

Writer and curator Maria Seda-Reeder is serving as the 2025 Alumni Exhibition’s visiting Roulet-Hernandez Family Curator. She has organized exhibitions at galleries and museums across the country and previously taught at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and University of Cincinnati.

“I titled the show Holding up the Mirror because I think all artists make work that reflects the world they inhabit. The mirror is also an archetypal symbol used throughout the canon of art history, which has broad yet relevant implications for the world as it currently stands,” Seda-Reeder says. “I think of artists as ‘first responders’—often pointing out our blindspots and helping us witness truths that we might otherwise not see.”

Nikki Woods, CIA’s director of exhibitions and galleries, believes Seda-Reeder brings valuable perspective to the 2025 Alumni Exhibition.

“I’m always excited to develop exhibition projects that support and expand critical dialogue for the work of CIA alumni artists. This exhibition does just that through bringing in the curatorial voice and vision of Maria Seda-Reeder,” Woods says. “By inviting others in, we create the opportunity for the work to be viewed in broader cultural and conceptual contexts, potentially opening the door for further scholarship and engagement.”

Seda-Reeder, long an admirer of Cleveland’s diverse artistic scene, looks forward to people experiencing CIA’s 2025 Alumni Exhibition.

“I hope visitors have a chance to witness the high quality of artists who graduate from CIA, that participating artists have a chance to gather and reconnect with peers, and that their community is reminded why art can be such a healing salve for the pains of the world,” she says.

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EVENTS

2025 Alumni Exhibition, Holding Up the Mirror, June 20–August 8. Opening reception 6-8pm Friday, June 20