EXHIBITION STATEMENT

The Durham Art Guild presents Traces of Displacement, an exhibition of works by Sam van Strien, developed during his 2024–25 residency at Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts in East Tennessee.

Through charcoal rubbings, drawings, laser-cut engravings, and archival texts, van Strien examines the architectural and historical legacy of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). His work is a meditation on how displacement – of buildings, landscapes, and communities – serves as a precondition for the accumulation of capital and the reshaping of regional identity.

A New Deal program that transformed the Tennessee Valley through dams and electrification, the TVA brought both progress and profound loss. Entire towns were submerged, thousands displaced, and vernacular structures uprooted in the name of modernization. Van Strien’s works engage with these contradictions, tracing tensions between state-driven infrastructural power and local resilience. Rubbings and engravings of cabins from the Museum of Appalachia, many themselves displaced by flooding, become tactile witnesses to these layered histories.

Archival maps and testimonies appear in screen-printed works, while drawings in response to Arrowmont’s collection of historic weavings open new dialogues between grids, textures, and material culture in Appalachia. The resulting pieces interlace architectural impressions, archival fragments, and woven patterns, reflecting on how histories of place are remembered and reimagined.

ARTIST BIO

Sam van Strien is a visual artist who examines the relationship between architecture and capitalism, exploring how these forces shape urban space. In his research and studio-based practice, Sam employs various techniques, such as rubbings from buildings, laser-cut engravings of photographs, and prints sourced from archival records. Sam holds an MFA from Ohio State University and a BA from Central Saint Martins at the University of the Arts London. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at Trinity Buoy Wharf (London), Keumsan Gallery (Seoul), and the Knoxville Museum of Art. He was recently a 2024–25 Artist-in-Residence at Arrowmont and will join Indiana University in 2026 as Assistant Professor of Architecture in the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design.

Curated by Sam van Strien and Dara Baldwin

Presented by the Durham Art Guild