YoungArts Residency Closing Reception

This celebration invites you into the creative spaces of our current artists-in-residence: Ariah Hamburg (2020 Design) and Ariel Weinberg (2021 Design). Enjoy light bites and refreshments as you explore works in progress, hear directly from the artists and connect with the local arts community. Free and open to the public—RSVP encouraged. Participating Artists Ariah Hamburg (2020 Design) is a multidisciplinary fashion designer whose work sits at the intersection of sculpture, performance and garment-making. From an early age, Ariah was drawn to transformation; not only to creating art, but to embodying it. While their early practice centered on sculpture and two-dimensional work, fashion quickly became their most powerful tool for storytelling, self-definition and escape. Before Ariah had the language to understand their identity, they found refuge in clothing. Draping garments became a way to build characters, inhabit beauty and imagine a future version of themself. That longing for transformation later crystallized through their obsession with mermaids, otherworldly figures who exist outside of social norms, simultaneously enchanting and unsettling. Ariah believes they are a mermaid. This iconography continues to shape their creative vision, informing a design language rooted in glamour, mystique and defiance. Their work explores femininity as both armor and spectacle, drawing from lived experience as a trans woman with a deeply personal relationship to the body. Ariah designs silhouettes that honor, protect and celebrate the wearer, centering the body as a site of power rather than conformity. Fashion, for Ariah, is not decorative—it is performative, sculptural and emotionally charged. Ariel Weinberg (2021 Design) has always been drawn to textures, craft, proportions and human anatomy. She grew up watching her grandfather, a collage artist, meticulously cut paper and build his narratives from flat two-dimensions into three. That patient, tactile process planted the seed for her love of craft and construction. As a third-generation Miami-en, Ariel has deep roots in this city; and even though she is pursuing a fashion career in New York, she is so excited to come back home and explore her passion in a city she believes can become one of the fashion capitals of the world. (Image: Ariah Hamburg & Ariel Weinberg, American Mermaid. 2026.) Complimentary on-site parking available. Light bites and refreshments will be served.