Exhibition
Strength in Fragility
Jenn Hassin
About the Exhibition
Ten Years of Transformation
Jenn Hassin is an active social practice artist and the Assistant Professor of Ceramics and Sculpture at Saint Edward's University in Austin, Texas. She received her Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University in 2021, with a focus on social practice. In 2012, she earned her degree in Studio Art from Saint Edward's University after serving in the United States Air Force.
Some of Hassin's most poignant works have been exhibited across the country and supported by prestigious institutions, including the Smithsonian, which curated her work Letters of Sacrifice into the Pentagon. Her art is held in both private and public collections nationwide. In 2020, she was featured as the Veterans Day Google Doodle, introducing her work to a national and international audience.
Over the last decade, Hassin's practice has evolved into a deeply personal and communal exploration of trauma, memory, and resilience. Her recent work transforms uniforms, clothing, and found materials into handmade paper, ceramics, and installations — often through collaborative projects involving veterans, survivors, and loved ones. Many of these pieces culminated in her latest solo exhibition, which spans ten years of work and centers on healing through shared stories and the physical transformation of material.
Jenn Hassin
US Air Force, 2006–2009
NVAM Artist Fellow 2025
Jenn Hassin
US Air Force, 2006–2009
NVAM Artist Fellow 2025
Artist Statement
My work is a labor of love, rooted in the transformation of personal artifacts that carry embedded histories of trauma. I collect materials such as military uniforms, garments associated with loss, and other items imbued with personal significance. Through processes like papermaking, ceramics, and installation, I reconfigure these materials into works that honor individual and collective experiences.
This practice serves as a means to process and communicate the complexities of trauma, resilience, and healing. Over the past decade, my art has evolved to include collaborative projects and performances that engage communities in acts of remembrance and transformation.
By inviting participation from veterans, survivors, and others, these works become communal spaces for dialogue and reflection. Through this, I aim to foster connections that acknowledge pain while also highlighting the strength found in shared experiences.
Selected Works
A Battle Lost
2015A memorial to the 22 veterans who take their own lives each day. The installation is composed of 8,030 hand-rolled paper spirals — one for each veteran suicide that year. Created in collaboration with over 100 veterans and community volunteers. Gold threads through the work, inspired by the Japanese practice of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold to highlight — rather than hide — its cracks.
Unfolded Dreams: Print Series
2023Honors the enduring bond between the Afghan women of the Female Tactical Platoon and the U.S. servicewomen who trained alongside them. Each print is made from pulped military uniforms from the U.S. and Afghanistan, embedding the material traces of service, resilience, and shared sacrifice.
Motherland in Mourning
2025Explores the fragility of nationhood, motherhood, and identity through symbolic material and form. Using pulp made from military uniforms, glazed porcelain, and a hijab positioned like a flag, the work constructs a layered landscape of grief and survival.
Flight Ended — Threads Remain
2025A meditation on mortality, legacy, and the quiet traces we leave behind. At its center lies a hand-sculpted crane made of porcelain and glazed matte black, suspended in a bed of black pulp. Beneath it, stitched into the composition, is the artist's grandmother's afghan — a soft relic of familial care.
Orders Unknown
2025Reflects on the quiet tragedy of obedience within military structures. Porcelain koi fish, sculpted by hand, spiral inward across the painting, their movement echoing military formation: graceful, unified, and bound to a path not of their own making. Embedded in pulp made from military uniforms.
Sacrifice
2017Made from hand-rolled paper crafted from military uniforms. At its center, a single blast forms a crater — carefully carved and hollowed out, as if frozen in the moment of impact. The rolls flare outward from this core, echoing both destruction and its quiet aftermath.
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