First day in Vermont I needed to by a hat. I when to the local clothes store and found a nice green woolen hat that I bough. In the hat there was a label. A white paper label with the text “Genuine Government Issue, 100% wool watch cap” and the there was a little emblem with a eagle and a circle text state “Department of Defense, United States of America”.
I wondered; what does the Department of Defense have to do with my hat? First I thought it was funny, with a government approved hat. And then I also felt uneasy, like I was watched, that the government is controlling me all the way down to my hat.
Being a non-US citizen I often feel like the government are involved in my life. I have to report what I do every time I enter the country, I have to be very careful what I say and don’t say, and what I do and don’t do. The very basic stuff like if you work, if you have a relationship and if you do, is it an American partner? Where are you from? Where did you study? Why? Where are you going next? Why are you here for such long time or why are you here so short? Who are you meeting? Where are you living? The questions are non-stop; starting at the airport, every time I talk to a stranger, or just catching up with a friend, all the time spent on American soil, to the point I leave again. Many times I don’t mind. But with that label in the hat I felt that everything I do, all decisions I make are a “genuine government issue”.
In the watercolor series “Genuine Government Issue” I let my day-to-day thoughts control the content of the Department. If the Government is going to be so invested in my life I reason that some new departments would need to be constituted.
