After completing her MFA program at the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2006, Cleveland based Japanese artist, Mimi Kato, has participated in residency programs across the country including the Roswell Artist in Residency Program in Roswell, NM; Albion College in Albion, MI; the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH; and SPACES World Artist Program (SWAP), SPACES, Cleveland, OH. Kato is a recipient of Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (CPAC) Creative Workforce Fellowship in 2013 when she collaborated with Cleveland Metroparks to showcase the battle between human and invasive plants as a SWAP artist. She is one of the artists selected for 2015 Women to watch exhibition at National Museum of Women in the Arts in DC. Kato is scheduled to have a solo exhibition at Columbia Museum of Art in South Carolina in the summer of 2019.