Lights and Perfections emerges from and expands upon the images, objects, and words that Jewish communities have historically designated as protective and powerful, and the stories invoked therein. How do the symbols and the amulets that house such stories hold and move a people’s identity, and what histories might they reveal here and now? How do they envelop a community’s fears, its resources, its wider world?
Casey began this series while they were a Fulbright Creative Writing Grantee (2021–22) in Ukraine and, subsequent to the full-scale invasion, in Poland. During that time, they were preoccupied by the shapes in which Jewish histories remain present despite the death, destruction, and forced disappearances of the past centuries. Moved through and around by contemporary inhabitants, they sought to discover how those histories inflect the stories we (us, them, everyone) tell about ourselves, and how they are rewritten in the telling.
The exhibited works were made possible with the support of the Fulbright Program as well as a New York Public Library Short-Term Research Fellowship.
Casey Carsel is a Jewish maker and writer drawn to the sharp beauty of the fragments of history that tumble down to the present moment. Their works have been presented in solo exhibitions at Co-Prosperity (Chicago), RM Gallery (Auckland), and Blue Oyster Gallery (Dunedin), amongst others, and recent grants, fellowships, and residencies include a New York Public Library Short-Term Research Fellowship, a Fulbright U.S. Creative Writing Grant, and a StudioWorks residency with the Tides Institute & Museum of Art.