Ian Cion

Ian Cion is an artist, writer, and aspiring astronaut living in Berkeley, California.    

Ian has over 11 years of experience making large-scale public art in cooperation with severely and terminally ill children and young adults.  From 2010 to 2016 he founded and served as the Director of the Arts In Medicine Program at the Children’s Cancer Hospital at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. His work at MD Anderson focused on using art to help patients cope with the experience of cancer treatment, with a special interest in using art as a tool for reducing pain and fear. 

In 2015, Ian started the Spacesuit Art Project, in cooperation with astronauts and cosmonauts from multiple international space agencies, including NASA, the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, the Japanese Space Agency and the Russian Space Federation, and children undergoing cancer treatment in pediatric centers around the world. Working with ILC Dover, who have manufactured spacesuits for NASA since the Apollo era, Ian helped turn the artwork collected in patient art studios he led in pediatric cancer hospitals into replica art spacesuits. This project led to the formation of several organizations, including the Space for Art Foundation, for which Ian serves as a founding director along with Astronaut Nicole Stott.  

Two of these art spacesuits have been sent to the International Space Station and worn by astronauts in video down link conversations with Pediatric Patients from around the world. This endeavor was the first recorded art exhibition in space.  

From 2017-2019 Ian served as the founding Exhibition and Program Manager at Rice University’s Moody Center for the Arts.     

Ian has taught, lectured, and exhibited internationally for the last 20 years, and is currently developing a new wave of cooperative, multi-disciplinary art works.