Autumn is well under way in Stockholm. With sun hours down to a minimum, a great art experience can save the day - a visit to Accelerator art space is sure to do just that.

“Dodge and/or Burn” is Lisa Tan’s first institutional solo in Sweden. The exhibition consists of five separate works – “Dodge and Burn”, “Pa”, “Letters from Dr. Bamberger” and “Waiting Room” series - presented within an overarching site-specific installation called “Promise or Threat” (2023). An open wall structure that expands over both galleries creating a skeleton that holds images, objects, sounds and video works in place and invites the viewer to explore their own path within. The installation takes its starting point from an illustrated graph by neurologist Oliver Sacks showing the physiological organisation of migraines. In Tan’s universe, Sacks’ drawing is used as an architectural floor plan which is superimposed on Accelerator’s own.

During the exhibition preview, Tan explains how she wants the art “not to represent the thing, but to be the thing” – a recurring theme in her artistic practice. As always at Accelerator, the curation by Therese Kellner is impressive. The porous, non-didactic mediation and layout of “Dodge and/or Burn” first seemed hard to grasp but makes the reward so much greater as it forces the viewer’s own mind to create meaning in a world marked by sensory overload, exhaustion, crisis and limbo. To use Tan’s own words - “art, like illness—in its dissonance and suspension has the ability to transform the way we understand ourselves, our desires.”

It is thought-provoking, clever and unexpectedly fun. Do not miss this gem of an exhibition, only a short tube ride from the city to Stockholm University. On view until Feb 11 2024.