Cherie Sampson has worked for over thirty years as an interdisciplinary artist in site-responsive and environmental performance, installation, video art and dance.  She has exhibited internationally in art-in-nature symposia, video/film screenings and exhibitions in many countries, with site-based and other solo performances presented in the U.S., Canada, Finland, Norway, Cuba, Spain, South Korea, the UK and in the Netherlands (in a performance attended by the Dutch Queen in 2003).  In 2018, the Pori Museum of Art in Pori, Finland acquired photographic and video documentation of Sampson’s site-based installations and performances created over a 20-year period in Finland for their permanent collection.  Sampson’s current solo performance project, “every.single.one” depicts an experience with hereditary breast cancer exploring topics of science, genetics and integrative healing from a patient’s perspective of modern medicine. Constructed from lived experience, field notes, documentary A/V material, interviews, and scientific information, “every.single.one” is a dramatic interpretation of a universal human reality that explores the body as a site of uncertainty in illness and survival. An upcoming performance of “every.single.one” will take place at the North Start Music Festival at Truman State University in October 2025. Recent performances of the show have been at the CEC Theater in Columbia, MO in February 2025, the Goldman Theater at the Edlavitch JCC in Washington, D.C. and the Minnesota Fringe Festival in 2024. In 2023 it was presented at the 20^th Annual Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) at the Banff Center for Arts & Creativity in Canada. “every.single.one” was a 2023 finalist for the Jane Chambers Award for new feminist plays and performance texts. Recent art exhibitions of Sampson’s work include two solo exhibitions at the Fort Madison Area Arts Association in Iowa (2025) and “Art, Cancer & Transformation,” at the Joan Hisaoka Gallery at the Smith Center for Healing & the Arts in Washington D.C. in 2023. In 2022, Sampson participated in a two-person exhibition with Gillian Brown, “The Quality of Being Fleeting” at the Currents 826 Gallery for the CURRENTS New Media Festival 2022 in Santa Fe. Sampson was the projection designer for the 2025 theatrical production of “ROMERO: The Making of a Saint,” a play by Xiomara Cornejo for the University of Missouri Theatre.

Sampson is the recipient of many grants including a Puffin Foundation Grant (“every.single.one” project), two Fulbright Fellowships, a Finnish Cultural Foundation Grant, multiple university research grants (including funding from the University of Missouri Ellis Fischel Cancer Center Research Administration office to support the “every.single.one” project). She is currently on the Fulbright Specialist Roster through 2028. Sampson is a Professor in the School of Visual Studies at the University of Missouri, teaching in the Art and Digital Storytelling programs. She divides her time between her academic and artistic life and the organic farm where she lives - a site for many of her works.  She received her MFA degree in Intermedia & Video Art from the University of Iowa in 1997. In addition to her creative work, Sampson serves as a patient advocate in several organizations: the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO), Facing Our Risk Empowered (FORCE) and the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (BCRP).