Strength in Fragility

Jenn Hassin

A large collection of neatly rolled and stacked felt pieces in various shades of gray, beige, and brown, arranged in a spiral pattern.

CLOSING Reception | SATURDAY JUNE 13 | 2 pm CST

National Veterans Art Musem (4041 N Milwaukee Ave)

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, to include the Smithsonian, which curated her work Letters of Sacrifice into the Pentagon. Hassin’s work has been shown at The Contemporary Austin, Affirmation Arts, Blue Star Contemporary, Ivester Contemporary, grayDUCK, Lenfest Center for the Arts, and most recently at the National Veterans Art Museum, among others. 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. She has also appeared on NPR, highlighted in publications like Glasstire and Art News. Major news networks have covered her work such as CBS Morning News with Project Raha.

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. In both her studio and her classroom, Hassin works with the intention of making a difference—giving voice to what is often unspoken and creating space for connection, care, and collective healing

Jenn Hassin

US Air Force 2006-2009

A smiling woman with short brown hair wearing a colorful scarf stands in a blurred workshop or kitchen environment.

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.

Read more about the work

  • Created in 2015 using 2014 statistics, A Battle Lost is a 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. Each spiral echoes the transition from life to death, symbolizing both beginning and end.

    This piece was created in collaboration with over 100 veterans and community volunteers, whose collective hands shaped the work and brought shared experiences of grief, hope, and resilience into physical form. Their involvement transforms the piece into a communal act of remembrance and advocacy.

    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. Abstract maps from global war zones, from World War II to the present, are fractured and repaired with this gold, symbolizing both the damage and the possibility of healing.

    To confront the crisis of veteran suicide, we must begin within our own ranks—dismantling the stigma around mental health that takes root during active duty and follows us beyond it. Let us unite, adapt, and overcome—one day at a time.

  • Unfolded Dreams honors the enduring bond between the Afghan women of the Female Tactical Platoon and the U.S. servicewomen who trained alongside them—many of whom now serve as their family in exile. Each print is made from pulped military uniforms from the U.S. and Afghanistan, embedding the material traces of service, resilience, and shared sacrifice.

    The series features recurring symbols: the scorpion, referencing Camp Scorpion—the base where these women served; the snakes, representing the intertwined relationship between Afghan and U.S. women; and the eagles, a universal emblem of strength and humanity. Together, these forms echo themes of protection, transformation, and unity across cultures.

    Through henna and ink printed on handmade paper, this work becomes both a record and a prayer—a visual tribute to sisterhood, survival, and collective memory.

  • This work centers on the symbol of Camp Scorpion, where the Female Tactical Platoon served, and overlays it with henna—a gesture of cultural identity and ritual. At its heart rests a rose, honoring the Afghan women known as “the roses of the base”—peacekeepers within a landscape shaped by war. The paper itself is handmade from pulped Afghan and U.S. military uniforms, embedding their histories directly into the surface. The contrast between the scorpion and the rose reflects the strength, grace, and resilience these women embodied in their service.

  • This work explores 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, I construct a layered landscape of grief and survival. The eagle—a national emblem of power—is rendered in glazed porcelain, intended to evoke death, yet remains hauntingly alive, reflecting a struggle between strength and surrender.

    At the base, the hijab unfurls like a banner, grounding the piece in cultural resilience and reverence. The visual and material contrasts between softness and armor, East and West, motherhood and statehood, are deliberate—inviting viewers to confront the weight of inherited narratives and the quiet endurance of those caught between them.

    This is a motherland in mourning, where legacies of service and displacement share the same soil.

  • Ouraflora explores the cyclical nature of life, growth, and self-consumption. This ceramic snake—glazed in blue and adorned with delicate, textile-like black flowers—forms an ouroboros, an ancient symbol of infinity and renewal. The floral patterns soften the serpent’s form, merging the language of danger with one of beauty and resilience.

    By fusing botanical motifs with the closed-loop of the snake, this work asks what we destroy or preserve in the process of becoming. It is a quiet meditation on transformation, repetition, and the tender power embedded in feminine forms.

  • This work is a meditation on mortality, legacy, and the quiet traces we leave behind. At its center lies a hand-sculpted crane, made out of porcelain and glazed matte black—its stillness suspended in a bed of black pulp. Beneath it, stitched into the composition, is my grandmother’s afghan: a soft relic of familial care, rendered in black and pink.

    The crane, long a symbol of grace and longevity, is intentionally lifeless—its wings no longer in motion. Yet below, the threads of my grandmother’s labor remain, grounding the piece in memory and matriarchal lineage. As a mother myself, I think often about the impermanence of life and the marks we leave—both tangible and intangible—for those who come after us.

    Flight Ended, Threads Remain is a quiet elegy. It holds space for grief, yes, but also for love, inheritance, and the comfort of knowing that even in stillness, something beautiful endures.

  • This work is made from hand-rolled paper crafted out of 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. It is a meditation on rupture—how violence expands beyond its origin—and the enduring imprint it leaves behind.

  • Made from pulped military uniforms, Aerial Perceptions captures the fragmented beauty and complexity of landscapes seen from above. Inspired by the view from a plane, the work explores the distance between observation and experience. The surface texture—formed by my hands—grounds the piece in personal touch, contrasting the detachment of flight with the intimacy of material and memory.

  • This work reflects on the quiet tragedy of obedience within military structures—the beauty, the violence, and the unknowing sacrifice. 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. They swim together—toward destruction or through it—never knowing which.

    Embedded in pulp made from military uniforms, the fish serve as stand-ins for the soldier’s body and spirit. Their glossy surface masks the violence that brought them here. The frame, formed from a pulped ceremonial dress, holds this scene in quiet contrast—ornamented, celebratory, and now transformed. Pressed into the pulp is lace from my grandmother, grounding the work in personal lineage and feminine care—a soft presence witnessing the spiral from the outside.

    This piece mourns the loss of agency in war, honors the generations who have carried its burden, and questions what beauty means when shaped by systems that ask for blind sacrifice.

  • Ouraflora explores the cyclical nature of life, growth, and self-consumption. This ceramic snake—glazed in blue and adorned with delicate, textile-like black flowers—forms an ouroboros, an ancient symbol of infinity and renewal. The floral patterns soften the serpent’s form, merging the language of danger with one of beauty and resilience.

    By fusing botanical motifs with the closed-loop of the snake, this work asks what we destroy or preserve in the process of becoming. It is a quiet meditation on transformation, repetition, and the tender power embedded in feminine forms.

  • These porcelain vessels were formed by pressing slabs into the cracks of my studio floor during graduate school—a time marked by uncertainty and introspection. I treated the clay like paper, folding and shaping it to preserve the imperfections and lines beneath me. The blue and orange circles, as well as the highlighted cracks are not flaws, but reflections—records of the questions I couldn't yet answer.

    In moments when my artist mind felt lost, I found clarity in the floor itself. Those cracks—quiet, unmoving—sometimes held more truth than I could articulate. This work is a gesture of listening, of honoring the space that held me while I worked to find my voice.

  • Created in collaboration with Afghan women during Project Raha in 2023, Scorpion Memories honors both memory and migration. The orange scorpion, made from a sweater worn by one woman during her flight from Afghanistan aboard a C-130, references Camp Scorpion, the base where they once served. Behind it, three gray fields echo the Afghan flag in grayscale—a faded symbol of a homeland they long for but can no longer return to. The piece holds the weight of past identity, displacement, and the strength carried in the act of survival.

  • Translation:

    All human beings are in truth akin;

    All in creation share one origin.
    When fate allots a member pangs and pains,

    No ease for other members then remains.

    Created in collaboration with my Afghan sisters, this piece centers a handwritten poem that speaks to our shared humanity and collective suffering. The verse, translated from Dari, reminds us that all human beings are connected—when one is in pain, none are untouched. Through this work, we honor not only the women’s voices and lived experiences, but also a truth that transcends borders: that empathy is both memory and action.

  • This piece was created in collaboration with an Afghan woman who drew, from memory, a rug once found in her home in Hazara. Made from the same materials as Scorpion Memories—including pulp from military uniforms and a sweater worn during her evacuation—the work becomes a reconstruction of place, identity, and loss. What was once woven by hand is now reimagined through memory, resilience, and the quiet act of remembrance.

  • Soaring Sisters honors the bond between U.S. and Afghan women veterans. Made from military uniforms and a hijab worn by an Afghan soldier, the pulp painting features two doves—symbols of sisterhood rising beyond borders and shared trauma.

  • Vibrant Paths maps the road out of Hazara using spirals of handmade paper, each rolled from the uniforms and clothing of Afghan and American women veterans in Project Raha. Bright colors trace the path forward, while muted grays represent the neighborhoods left behind. Each spiral holds a personal story—garments transformed into vessels of memory and resilience. This piece honors the journey from trauma toward hope.

  • Made from pulped uniforms from all six branches of the U.S. military, this floor-based piece reflects the transformation of identity through service. Each color comes from a single uniform—a single life—honoring individuality within the collective. The boot prints pressed into the surface speak to shared journeys and the literal and symbolic weight of service. Displayed like a flag laid on the ground, it invites reflection not on defeat, but on foundation—suggesting that our values and sacrifices are what we stand on, build from, and rise through.

  • Respecting Trauma was created with nine peers from group therapy, using handmade paper formed from garments tied to personal trauma—and sheets a woman was raped on. Together, we dipped the paper into porcelain slip, mixed it into a cohesive material. These were later fired and burned away, but the skeletons of the flowers remained and formed a new shared arrangement. Each piece bears a handwritten intention, transforming collective pain into quiet acts of care and resilience. The yellow staining, caused naturally by the wood underneath, was unplanned — symbolizing how trauma leaves marks beyond our control, and how healing often emerges from the uncontrollable.

  • Terrible News is composed of rolled newspaper pages, each containing somber and distressing headlines. These rolls converge into a singular blast form, resembling a crater left by an explosion. The piece reflects on the cumulative weight of negative news and its impact on our collective consciousness.

  • Captured is a still life composed of deeply personal objects—each layered with memory and meaning. My grandfather’s “Silent” typewriter stands as a symbol of the quiet endured by veterans and women in my lineage. Porcelain sheets mimic paper, one repaired in a kintsugi-like manner, suggesting that my story holds beauty precisely because it’s been broken and pieced back together. The cup I used  from Molting, a dip-cast tea bag from my favorite tea, and fragile tamarind rinds echo themes of ritual, resilience, and what is delicately held but rarely spoken.

  • A Life Battle was the first rolled paper piece I made from handmade paper created with my own Air Force uniform. Friends, family, strangers, and my child contributed drawings, letters, and hopes onto the paper, which I then rolled into a circular composition that represents my life and those who shape it. The gold bands, originally an experiment, came to symbolize the value I place on those relationships and the resilience that keeps me moving forward.

  • At What Cost? is a living sculpture built from the seams of past projects—threads once stitched into works born of grief, hope, celebration, and survival. Over the years, I’ve saved and woven these remnants together, letting them carry the weight of their origins into something new. This evolving piece asks what we carry forward, and how our shared histories intertwine. Each seam holds a story; together, they form a collective reflection.

    Instruction for Viewers:
    Please take a piece of seam from the tray and weave it into the sculpture. Your gesture becomes part of the work—a quiet act of connection, remembrance, and contribution to a growing story.

  • A tiny gun rests in the corner, its bright trail winding like a snake across gray military pulp. The colors come from the clothing of a young girl who is no longer here. Rainbow Snake is both a confrontation and a tribute—violence giving way to memory, sorrow blooming into color.

  • White porcelain, lace, and water converge in Solemn—a performance vessel echoing the human body. It was made to be held, yet it holds: memory, ritual, inheritance, and healing. When the vessel was later damaged, I repaired it with bright pink pulp made from the clothing of a sweet young girl who is no longer with us. This gesture reflects the artist’s belief that there is no hierarchy in trauma—every fracture, every story, matters.

  • This work centers on a performance where women poured water onto a paper dress I wore—made from the clothing of sexual assault survivors. The water dissolved the dress, leaving only gold seams and bits of pulp clinging to them. Draped on a pedestal, they are quiet witnesses to what remains. The accompanying photographs capture the ceremonial act, evoking power, grief, and solidarity.

  • This large round work is made from pulp formed from the clothing of sexual assault survivors. Porcelain-dipped flowers, mixed with the same pulp, were fired until both the flowers and fiber vanished—leaving behind only their shape, their presence through absence. Like a cremation, the process speaks to transformation, memory, and the beauty left in what remains. Painfully Beautiful was performed in-front of this work and was meant to give the performance a ceremonial aura.

  • This was my first dress performance, marking the beginning of a personal and public transformation. The paper was made from the clothing I wore when I was raped, combined with garments from my family and loved ones. I poured water over myself as my husband documented the act—a ritual of shedding, release, and survival. Molting speaks to the enduring impact of trauma, not only on the self, but on those who love us.