GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — What do we owe to each other? Casey VanderStel wants the question to start a conversation.
"We're not islands. We have relationships to other people," VanderStel said. “I don't want to throw away religion or throw away faith... I want to actively engage.”
This summer, the Christian Reformed Church reaffirmed its position that LGBTQ+ relationships are explicitly sinful. Those in minority communities on the margins— including VanderStel— watched.
"They don't want me there," VanderStel, who is queer, said. "I'm not the person those communities are built for, necessarily."
During her childhood, the West Michigan native attended South Christian High School and went to "fundamentalist" church.
Then, she left the historically Dutch, Protestant community.
"I do feel so much nostalgia and warmth and love for Grand Rapids," VanderStel said. "[But] they're not safe places for me."
When planning for ArtPrize, VanderStel began to brainstorm a love letter to Lake Michigan but couldn't deny a "painful" history spent sitting in the pews.
“I think there are versions of Christianity that believe really exclusionary things, and they hide it deep in their belief statements," VanderStel said.
Through "What Do We Owe To Each Other?"— installed at Fountain Street Church— VanderStel processed her past, separating the piece into three panels.
The first— according to an installation guide— deals with the "Dutch-American Protestant identity" through a large oil painting, a collection of wooden shoes and delftware.
“These little moments that are so ubiquitous to people who live in Grand Rapids, but so foreign to someone who is not from the area," VanderStel said about hand-painted details like "Frozen Chosen," a phrase used to describe the worship style of the CRC.
The second panel considers "Christian Fundamentalist" doctrine by including belief statements from Byron Center-area churches and references to the "clobber passages" traditionally used to define homosexuality as sinful.
"They're just intense and loaded," VanderStel said.
Then finally, the third panel uses cyanotype to compile a blue-colored, floral commentary on Vanderstel's "confusing nostalgia."
“There are wonderful values that those communities taught me," VanderStel said. "Christianity is in my blood."
Now a Chicago resident, Vanderstel frequents an LGBTQ-affirming church.
"It's really, really healing," she said.
From time to time, though, the history held in West Michigan brings her back.
"It's a piece that starts conversations," VanderStel said. "I don't think it's necessarily a piece that gives answers."
