HAMBURG.- The exhibition project Survival in the 21st Century explores the fundamentals of life in the age of poly-crisis. The exhibition, developed by Georg Diez and Nicolaus Schafhausen in close coordination with the Deichtorhallen, incorporates fundamental questions of ecology, technology, and spirituality. The School of Survival will augment the works by some forty international artists featured in the exhibition and transform the museum into a learning space for the future.

Survival in the 21st Century focuses on the basic questions of human existence and reflects on the radical changes ahead: climate change, the digital revolution, increasing injustice on national and global scales, democracy in crisis, and the necessity of community. This elaborate exhibition, featuring numerous multimedia installations and an exhibition architecture designed by the office of Bundschuh Architects, demonstrates how cultural survival needs new cultural practices.

In a radically complex world, fundamental questions are posed differently and anew: How can we rethink the economy, build, live, and eat differently, use technology for humanity in new ways, learn from non- Western or prehistoric societies, organize human and non-human coexistence differently, turn ecology into a comprehensive discipline, and transform our democratic processes and institutions to be more transparent, direct, and democratic?

The exhibition aims to present possible worlds beyond artistic practice. It offers the wider public an opportunity to learn together and from each other, as a constructive public, through workshops, lectures, and the continuous educational programming of the School of Survival. The museum will become a school for the new century, embracing the transformation of education and learning as essential. Art is the medium; survival is the goal..

With works by Abbas Akhavan, Andrea Bowers, Assemble, Sam Chermayeff, Bruno Serralongue, Cao Fei, Carolyn Lazard, Celine Pages & Christine Marchal, Charles Stankievech, Christelle Oyiri, Edith Dekyndt, Emmanuel Van der Auwera, Goshka Macuga, Grayson Perry, James Bridle, Jeremy Shaw, Jota Mombaça, Kablusiak, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Leon Kahane, Liam Gillick, Lubiana Himid, Mohammed Bourouissa, New Red Order (NRO), Olaf Nicolai, Panteha Abareshi, Paul Kolling, Ron Terada, Sharon Lockhart, Shaun Motsi, Simon Denny, Syrus Marcus Ware, Taus Makhacheva, Trevor Paglen, Yalda Afsah, and others.

A Manual for Survival is published as part of the exhibition Survival in the 21st Century at Deichtorhallen Hamburg. It includes contributions by Frédérique Ait-Touati, Holly Jean Buck, Srecko Horvat, Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Ece Temelkuran, Katinka Versendaal and others.

The exhibition is produced by the Deichtorhallen Hamburg. Curators: Georg Diez and Nicolaus Schafhausen

Assistant curators: Lena Baumgartner and Frances Fürst