Photos: Ion Houston's latest art installations tackle tech, social issues

eye on the ion

Revealed at an event earlier this month, the Ion is now home to installations by Houston-based artists Christopher Blay and Kill Joy, which play on the traditional window displays the building hosted for years as the historic Sears Building. Photo courtesy of Marc Furi Creative/the Ion

Two new art installations at the Ion speak to the building's past and its potential future.

Revealed at an event earlier this month, the innovation hub developed by Rice University is now home to installations by Houston-based artists Christopher Blay and Kill Joy, which play on the traditional window displays the building hosted for years as the historic Sears Building.

The pieces are part of the Ion's Eye on Art program, according to a release. Each was selected by the Ion and Ion District Art Advisory Council with support from Piper Faust.

"Innovation and art have a lot more in common than you might think. Many of our local artists learn how to use emerging technologies to create their pieces and hone their craft,” Jan E. Odegard, executive director of the Ion, says in a statement. “Creativity plays a vital role in fostering innovation and we’re honored to provide artists like Christopher and Kill Joy with a platform to serve as an inspiration for the entire innovation ecosystem here at the Ion.”

Blay, who's an artist, writer and currently serves as the chief curator of the Houston Museum of African American Culture, created his installation in collaboration with the Ion Prototyping Lab. Using canvases and wood frames, the installation depicts slaving vessels and spaceships to "symbolizes where the Black community has been and where they are going," according to the Ion.

The installation is part of Blay's latest body of work, “The SpLaVCe Program."

Joy's work focuses on environmental and social justice. Her installation at the Ion, “Creation, Current, Solution," uses animated puppets inspired by Filipino folklore to explore the intersection of technology and sustainable living.

Blay and Joy's installations will be on display for the next six months, and will rotate out to feature other Houston-based artists' work.

The Ion first launched the The Eye On Art Program in March 2022. The debut displays included Lina Dib’s over-the-top kitsch “Self-Portrait in the Garden” and Preston Gaines' multi-sensory “Fantasy Landscape.” The second rotation featured Lisa Morales and Stacey Gresell’s “The Collective Hive” and “Exploración Orgánica” by Maria Rodriguez, Miriam Mireles, Bryce Saucier, Timothy Hudson, and Victoria Armenta: “Exploración Orgánica”

Earlier this summer, the Ion also announced that it would launch its official workforce development partner’s 12- to 15- week technology skills training courses this fall.

Click through photos from the new installation below.

“The SpLaVCe Program" by Christopher Blay

Photo courtesy of Marc Furi Creative/the Ion

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4 Houston innovators who made headlines in September 2025

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Editor's note: Houston innovators made headlines this month with carbon capture breakthroughs, a cost-effective Parkinson's treatment, and workspace wellness products. Read more about these recent breakthroughs, developments, and launches — and the innovators behind them — below.

Emmie Casey and Tomi Kuye, Rice University

Rice University students Emmie Casey and Tomi Kuye used smartphone motors to develop a vibrotactile glove. Photo by Gustavo Raskosky/ Courtesy Rice University.

Two Rice University undergraduate engineering students have developed a non-invasive vibrotactile glove that aims to alleviate the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease through therapeutic vibrations. Emmie Casey and Tomi Kuye developed the project with support from the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK).

Based on research from the Peter Tass Lab at Stanford University, the Rice team set out to replicate the breakthrough technology at a lower cost. They are working to develop a commercial version of the glove priced at $250 and are taking preorders now, with hopes to deliver 500 gloves this fall. Read more.

Jules Lairson, Work&

Houston-based Work& has introduced its new Lactation Pod and Hybrid Pod. Photo courtesy Work&.

Houston-based femtech company Work&, led by co-founder and COO Jules Lairson, has introduced new products aimed at supporting working mothers and the overall health of all employees.

The company's new Lactation Pod and Hybrid Pod serve as dual-use lactation and wellness spaces that feature a fully compliant lactation station while also offering wellness functionalities that can support meditation, mental health, telehealth, and prayer.

“This isn’t about perks,” Lairson said. “It’s about meeting people where they are—with dignity and intentional design. That includes the mother returning to work, the employee managing anxiety, and everyone in between.” Read more.

Mim Rahimi, University of Houston

Professor Mim Rahimi, UH. Courtesy photo

A team of researchers at the University of Houston led by professor Mim Rahimi has made two breakthroughs in addressing climate change and potentially reducing the cost of capturing harmful emissions from power plants.

The first introduces a membraneless electrochemical process that cuts energy requirements and costs for amine-based carbon dioxide capture during the acid gas sweetening process. The second demonstrates a vanadium redox flow system capable of both capturing carbon and storing renewable energy.

“From membraneless systems to scalable flow systems, we’re charting pathways to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors and support the transition to a low-carbon economy,” Rahimi said. Read more.

Houston scientists create platform for long-lasting, precise drug delivery

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A team of Rice University scientists has developed a new drug delivery platform that researchers say can slow the rate of drug release, which has major implications for drug efficacy and potentially cancer immunotherapy.

The research was published in Nature Nanotechnology, and supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas and the Welch Foundation.

In the study, the team demonstrated how a peptide hydrogel functions as a three-dimensional network that controls the rate of release across a range of medication types, including small-molecule drugs and biologics such as insulin and antibodies. The system, called self-assembling boronate ester release (SABER), uses reversible chemical bonds between the peptide and the drug molecule to extend the duration of drug release. Instead of passing quickly through the net, the drug gets temporarily “stuck” each time it binds to the peptide, which slows its passage out of the hydrogel, according to Rice.

The researchers formulated a tuberculosis-treating drug into a hydrogel. They used it to treat infected mice with a single injection of the drug-laden hydrogel. In the test, the hydrogel outperformed almost daily oral administration of the medication over two weeks. Insulin packaged in SABER hydrogels successfully controlled blood sugar levels in diabetic mice for six days in another set of experiments.

Brett Pogostin, a Rice doctoral alum who led the development of SABER and served as first author of the study, began working on self-assembling peptides as an undergraduate student at Rice. Jeffrey Hartgerink, a professor of chemistry and bioengineering at Rice, and Kevin McHugh, associate professor of bioengineering and chemistry and a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas scholar, advised Pogostin and served as corresponding authors on the study.

Pogostin’s work aimed to bridge foundational materials research and biomedical applications. SABER was inspired by a drug delivery course taught by McHugh, where Pogostin learned about dynamic covalent bonds used in glucose sensing, where the bonds reversibly form and break apart. That quality inspired Pogostin to adapt the concept for drug delivery.

“Brett really drove this project in a way that is, in my experience, unusual for a graduate student,” Hartgerink said in the news release. “It’s a very versatile approach. You can make both small-molecule drugs and very large biologics sticky with the type of chemistry that Brett developed.”

The team demonstrated the platform in two different use cases with Tuberculosis and Type 1 diabetes, with SABER simplifying dosing and enhancing the efficacy of the drugs. Hartgerink described the current SABER system as “generation one,” and plans to work to make it widely applicable. He is looking into how SABER could be applied to cancer immunotherapy.

“What I’m really passionate about right now is cancer prevention — trying to think about how we can use materials to prime the immune system to prevent cancer from ever happening as opposed to just treating it,” Pogostin added.

10 Houston companies clock in with best corporate cultures, says Forbes

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Two of Houston's biggest medical institutions – Houston Methodist and MD Anderson Cancer Center – have just landed top-50 spots on Forbes' new ranking of "America's Best Employers for Company Culture." The report highlighted eight more Houston-area companies for their inspiring company culture.

Forbes partnered with market research firm Statista to survey over 218,000 workers at companies with at least 1,000 employees throughout the U.S, and relied on data from the past three years of employee surveys (with an emphasis on the most recent data and recommendations from current employees). Companies don't pay to be included, Forbes additionally noted.

Among the final list of 600 U.S. companies, 30 Texas employers were praised for providing "a unifying company culture that inspires a sense of purpose and loyalty among employees."

Houston Methodist climbed into the No. 15 spot nationally and outranked all other Texas companies on the list, while MD Anderson ranked 47th nationwide. Both institutions have dominated U.S. News' annual rankings of the best Texas hospitals for over a decade, proving exactly how having a great company culture can also improve the service provided to patients.

MD Anderson Cancer Center has been the No. 1 best cancer hospital in the U.S. for over a decade. Photo courtesy of KVUE

According to the report's research, employers with a successful company culture don't rely on "surface-level perks" such as free lunches, wellness apps, and flex days to inspire employee engagement. Instead, employers that focused on conflict resolution and coaching their managers saw a reduction in employee burnout and an increase in "perceptions of fairness and leadership care."

"In fact, the researchers noted that when 'senior leaders changed how they led — how they ran meetings, gave feedback, made decisions and responded to challenge — trust scores rose by an average of 26 percent,'" the report said.

The eight other Houston-area companies that earned national acclaim for their company culture are:

No. 220 – Stewart Info Services
No. 325 – BP
No. 332 – Baylor College of Medicine
No. 492 – Chevron Phillips Chemical, The Woodlands
No. 525 – Insperity
No. 558 – NRG Energy
No. 586 – Waste Management
No. 593 – LyondellBassell

Other Texas employers with great company culture:

Elsewhere in Texas, 15 North Texas companies and five Central Texas companies were included on Forbes' list of employers with the best company culture.

The three Austin-area companies that earned spots on the list include Austin Community College District (No. 56), Round Rock-based Dell Technologies (No. 207), and Keller Williams Realty (No. 352).

The two San Antonio-based companies that made the cut are beloved Texas grocery chain H-E-B (No. 445), and municipal electric utility company CPS Energy (No. 551).

The 15 Dallas-Fort Worth-based companies that made the list include:

No. 58 – The Container Store, Coppell
No. 73 – Lewisville Independent School District, Lewisville
No. 117 – Southwest Airlines, Dallas
No. 123 –Topgolf, Dallas
No. 170 – McKesson, Irving
No. 190 – Kimberly-Clark, Irving
No. 245 – Jacobs Solutions,Dallas
No. 312 – Brinker International, Coppell
No. 350 – Texas Health Resources, Arlington
No. 482 – Toyota North America, Plano
No. 562 – Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), Dallas
No. 567 – AT&T, Dallas
No. 569 – Energy Transfer, Dallas
No. 591 – American Airlines Group, Fort Worth
No. 597 – Aimbridge Hospitality, Plano

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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