Jenn Hassin is the 2025 NVAM Artist Fellow at the National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago. Her exhibition at NVAM spans a decade of work and is on view at the museum’s Milwaukee Avenue location, with a closing reception on June 13, 2026.
Hassin is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. She earned her degree in Studio Art from Saint Edward’s University in 2012 after serving, and received her Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University in 2021, with a focus on social practice.
Her work transforms uniforms, clothing, and found materials into handmade paper, ceramics, and installations, often through collaborative projects involving veterans, survivors, and loved ones. The uniforms she works with have been donated by service members or their families across all military branches.
Regarding her process, Hassin has said: “It takes two hours of work to turn a uniform into pulp and countless hours after that turning it into paper and then rolling it for the finished piece. Taking a uniform and transforming it ultimately into paper is alchemy — a ceremonial moment where the DNA of that uniform is now forever part of that sheet of paper.”
Hassin describes her work as “a labor of love, rooted in the transformation of personal artifacts that carry embedded histories of trauma.”
Her work has been shown at The Contemporary Austin, Affirmation Arts, Blue Star Contemporary, Ivester Contemporary, grayDUCK, and the Lenfest Center for the Arts. The Smithsonian curated her work “Letters of Sacrifice” into the Pentagon. In 2020, she was featured as the Veterans Day Google Doodle. Her work has been covered by CBS Morning News, NPR, Glasstire, and Art News.
Source: nvam.org/jenn-hassin · artbeatbuzz.com · arts.columbia.edu
