Invocations of Entanglement

John Felix Arnold

John Felix Arnold’s Invocations of Entanglement will be on display at 21c Museum Hotel Durham from August 23rd – October 26th, 2025. The exhibition is presented through 21c’s Elevate program, which highlights artists living and working within the Triangle area. There will be an opening reception on Saturday, August 23rd from 6-8pm.

Working across drawing, works on paper, video, and site responsive sculpture, Arnold creates layered meditations on place, memory, and myth. Informed by archival and material research into Durham’s history, writings by anthropologist Anna Tsing, and personal narrative, the work considers the landscape not as an idealized revisionist backdrop, but as a vessel of embedded stories. Central to the exhibition is an installation of the sculpture Sermons in the Soil inside the hotel’s historic bank vault, an architectural gesture that honors the work’s site-responsive intent.

Created using locally sourced pine, granite, and living plants, the sculpture activates the space as a site of deep listening and contemplation.