The temperature drops rapidly, light shifts from bright to dark, and the air grows heavy, as if it had gained weight. In the exhibition spaces of Kunsthalle Basel, a tornado seems to build. In her first institutional solo exhibition in Europe, Alliance, Shuang Li (b. 1990) turns to the search for storms not only as literal and physical nature phenomena, but, more importantly, as metaphors for the highly mediated realities and digital forces that shape and permeate our everyday lives.

At the center of the exhibition is the premiere of Shuang Li’s most ambitious video installation to date. The film follows three main characters, played by the same ‘actress’, a sex doll. Accompanied by a film crew, they engaged in “storm chasing”–the deliberate pursuit of severe weather events such as tornadoes. Loosely scripted, the film unfolds through a series of unexpected encounters that emerge in real time.

This search develops through a sequence of spatial and atmospheric stages. Each gallery progresses with the journey, beginning with everyday observation and the onset of the chase, to heightened intensity, then culminating at the centre in the eye of the storm itself.

People chase storms for many reasons: a fascination with meteorology, an attraction to the sublime power of nature, or simply the thrill of an adrenaline rush. Much of a typical storm chasing day consists of long drives across open landscapes, guided by forecasts yet marked by a constant sense of uncertainty. Li extends this forward-moving trajectory into the exhibition space itself. The rooms become the foundation of a road that stretches through heightened, almost overexposed landscapes, passing by film stills and a meteorological map displayed like oversized roadside billboards.

The search for the tornado appears here as an image for a present shaped by conditions of permanent circulation. Tornadoes, livestreams, media systems, and digital infrastructures serve as forces that are both distant and immediate, physically felt yet difficult to grasp, always in motion and never fully contained.

–

Courtesy of the artist, Kunsthalle Basel and Antenna Space.

–

Shuang Li: Alliance

2026.06.12-2026.09.13

Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, CH

Curator: Mohamed AImusibli