Deconstructing Khaki
Virtual Conversation on Craft /Saturday, November 6th @ 11am PST / 1pm CST / 2pm EST via Zoom
Border Patrol adopts the architectural and aesthetic cues of our subject matter to inform how we organize and execute exhibitions. Our goal has always been to explore the intersection of contemporary art and capitalist aesthetics. Our current interests are specifically focused on the way that khaki represents these overlapping topics, emphasizing the material’s colonial history and role in contemporary corporate fashion.
Khaki is an Urdu word meaning 'soil-colored'. Sought out for its lightweight fabric and loose fit, khaki quickly became standard issue for British colonists and the United States military. Khaki has since invaded corporate offices and became a chosen symbol of the “working professional.” More recently, this office uniform has been co-opted by white supremacists in America as a camouflage or veneer to cover their ideology of hate. Given these past and present uses, our discussion aims to uncover the aesthetic and political future of khaki.
About Border Patrol
Border Patrol is a bi-coastal curatorial collective that explores the intersection between contemporary art and corporate aesthetics. We use architectural and linguistic cues to probe the boundaries of government agency, responding to the state's various edifices and the ontological framework it produces. From January 2017 - June 2019, we organized over fifteen exhibitions and events in Portland, ME with national artists in venues including a former dentist's office, a burrito shop, a shopping mall, and a cemetery. We moved to a more itinerant and site-responsive model in 2020, but you can visit our permanent public artwork in the Highland Memorial Cemetery (Portland, ME). Our latest project, Voices in the Shadow, is a publication created in collaboration with detainees at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center. The 162 page book is available for purchase on our website, and proceeds support the detainees.
IG: @borderpatrolmaine
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Member Bios:
MEG HAHN
Meg Hahn is an artist and arts worker based in Portland, Maine. She has attended The Sam and Adele Golden Foundation Residency, the Vermont Studio Center, Hewnoaks Artist Colony, and the Monhegan Artists' Residency. Her work has been included in exhibitions at Trestle Gallery, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, and Perimeter Gallery. She graduated from Maine College of Art with a BFA in Painting and a minor in Art History. Meg is a co-director at Border Patrol and works out of the SPACE Studios building.
IG: @mmeghahn
Jared Haug
Jared is an artist and educator living in Bakersfield, CA. Haug is a founding member of Ditch Projects in Springfield, OR and the curatorial collective, Border Patrol. Previous exhibitions include Rocksbox (Portland, OR), Grammar Center (Medford, OR), Human Resources (Los Angeles, CA), The Holland Project (Reno, NV) and Buoy (Kittery, ME).
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Baxter Koziol
Baxter Koziol studied at Maine College of Art & Design (BFA 2017) and has attended residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Monson Arts, Hewnoaks, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, and Surf Point Foundation. He lives and works in Portland, ME.
IG: @baxterkoziol
Elizabeth Spavento
Elizabeth is a curator and artist living in Bakersfield, CA and a founding member of the curatorial collective, Border Patrol.
From 2016 - 2019 Spavento served as the Visual Arts Programmer at SPACE in Portland, ME where she curated exhibitions, oversaw the Kindling Fund Grant as part of the Warhol Foundation's regranting network, and ran a residency program dedicated to highlighting the contributions of queer artists and artists of color. From 2015 - 2016, she co-curated ALL RISE with Meagan Atiyeh, a two-year temporary public art program for an empty acre of land in downtown Seattle. Americans for the Arts recognized ALL RISE as one of the nation's outstanding public art projects two years in a row. Previous curatorial projects include exhibitions with Disjecta Contemporary Art Center (Portland, OR), Open Source Gallery (New York, NY), and Interstitial Gallery (Seattle, WA).
Spavento is a recipient of an Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Project Grant and has been awarded residencies with Iris Project (Los Angeles, CA); ACRE (Steuben, WI); and the Centre for the Study of Substructured Loss (London, England). She has lectured about curatorial practice and artist-centered systems at institutions such as Alfred State University, the Maine College of Art, the Portland Museum of Art, and Henry Art Gallery. She currently serves as the Executive Director of the Arts Council of Kern.