The images are medals, but not awards.
They echo honor—but also exhaustion, softness, and will.
Symmetrical, because the work never was.
I made them in the margins—
after bedtime, in the quiet that wasn’t.
Some phrases came fast. Others took years.
None were clapped for.
There’s no irony here.
But there is trespass.
A quiet theft of language—
reassigned to what never counted.
This isn’t just about caregiving.
It’s about moments no one logs—
but that carry us.
The format is institutional.
The content is not.
The devotion is daily.
The labor, unseen.
These are its traces.
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Medals for the Unseen is a conceptual photographic series that reframes the language of state honor to recognize the invisible labor of caregiving—particularly the emotional work of motherhood. Each image presents a digitally generated prototype of an antique-style medal, inscribed with a quiet act of endurance:
“Asked for Help.”
“Fed Me Too.”
“Stood Firm in My Boundary.”
These aren’t awards. They’re records. Not nostalgia, but architecture—for a system that doesn’t exist yet.
The project draws from the spirit of Fluxus—not in its chaos, but in its clarity. Each medal is a visual score for a performance that already happened: unceremoniously, in kitchens, cars, and pediatrician offices. I’m not asking for applause. I’m asking: What do we reward? What gets remembered? Who gets to be heroic?
This series began not in a studio, but in the unpredictable in-between spaces of caregiving: waiting rooms, 2 a.m. feedings, and the quiet that isn’t really quiet. It was shaped by hundreds of conversations with other caregivers, all echoing a common realization: we are sustaining entire worlds without acknowledgment, without infrastructure, and without rest.
We are told care is sacred—but somehow, it’s always unpaid.
Rather than demand recognition, I’m designing it.
Rather than wait for validation, I’m offering visibility—on our terms.
These images are the first stage of a larger body of work. What began as digital prototypes—created in fragments of stolen time, with minimal resources—will evolve into physical objects, installations, and communal rituals.
This isn’t about glorifying motherhood.
It’s about naming what sustains us—and what’s been too easy to overlook.
I’m imagining these medals as zines, stickers, offerings—artifacts that circulate outside of galleries, into pockets, fridges, waiting rooms, and daily life. I want this project to keep growing, not just as an archive, but as a tool for connection, reflection, and revaluation.
If you're a caregiver, educator, publisher, or just someone who sees yourself in this—I'd love to connect.
MOM, ME, 2018
Fingerprints, Wire Frame, Monofilament, Fired Clay, Fish Hook Earrings
Aluminium mesh, Wall Paint, Monofilament, Staples
Virtual Installation over Ree Morton, One of the Beaux Paintings (#4), 1975.
"I began this work with a deep research into Ree Morton’s work. I discovered her old sketchbooks and found it astonishing and disheartening that the questions she was asking and the concerns she had as a woman artist in the 1970s are still an issue today. Even after 45 years, we’re still having the same conversation! In response to this, I created videos of endlessly washing and peeling apples to suggest the constant brainwashing and expectations to conform to gender norms, that society and the media impose on women. My goal for this AR is to acknowledge the subliminal messages of gender norms by sending that message back in the form of a scrolling text in the spirit of Jenny Holzer. We are all more than our signifiers and the expectations placed on us and must no longer shy away from putting ourselves in an assertive place.
-Jasmin Han "
Part of Giving a F@*%: Forms of Feminism in Response to Riot Grrrls Post
Performance, Installation
Metal Rod, CNC Cut Metal Sheet, Oak
