The work by Josefin Arnell defines a loaded visual language combining anger, desire, disgust and pleasure. Her film work extends to performance, installation, objects, poetry or drawings. She is interested in how storytelling and filmmaking can be used as a form of resistance and as socio-political activity. Through complex realities and absurd fictionalization loosely narratives are centered around characters that try to navigate in contemporary infrastructures with impossible demands. With humor she addresses how power structures affect the individual such as class issues and group dynamics. Her processes are often socially engaged and site-specific. 

In 2015 and 2016 she participated in the residency program at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. In 2018 she won the Theodora Niemeijer Prijs for emerging female artists in the Netherlands. In 2023 she was nominated for the art prize Prix de Rome Netherlands with a presentation at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

Places where her work has been shown include: Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; WIELS, Brussels; Cell Project Space, London; Index, Stockholm; UKS, Oslo; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem; Athens Biennale; Auto Italia, London; Kunsthalle Münster, Rencontres Internationales, Paris/Berlin, Riga International Film Festival and IDFA International Documentary Film festival Amsterdam.