Survival in the 21st Century

The exhibition project SURVIVAL IN THE 21st CENTURY explores the foundations of life in the age of the polycrisis. Developed by Georg Diez and Nicolaus Schafhausen in close cooperation with the Deichtorhallen, the exhibition incorporates elementary questions of ecology, technology and spirituality. The "School of Survival" expands the 35 international artistic positions and turns the exhibition venue into a learning space for the future. SURVIVAL IN THE 21st CENTURY focuses on fundamental questions of human existence and reflects on the radical disruptions we are facing: climate change, the digital revolution, growing injustice on a national and global scale, the crisis of democracy and the question of community. The elaborate exhibition with numerous multimedia installations and an exhibition architecture designed by Bundschuh Architekten demonstrates how cultural survival requires new cultural practices.

In a radically complex world, fundamental questions are posed differently and anew: how can we manage, build and live differently, eat differently, use technology differently for people, how can we learn from non-Western societies, how can human and non-human coexistence be organized differently, how can ecology become a comprehensive lesson, how can we change our political processes and institutions so that they become more transparent, more direct, more democratic? The exhibition aims to make world concepts accessible beyond artistic practice. It is a social offer to learn together and from each other as a constructive public - in workshops, lectures and continuously through the seminar-like educational program of the "School of Survival" also in the city. The exhibition house will become a kind of school for the new century, which sees and embraces the changes in education and learning as essential. Art is the medium, survival is the goal. With works by Abbas Akhavan, Andrea Bowers, Assemble, 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, Lubaina Himid, Mohammed Bourouissa, New Red Order (NRO), Olaf Nicolai, Panteha Abareshi, Paul Kolling, Ron Terada, Sam Chermayeff, Sharon Lockhart, Shaun Motsi, Simon Denny, Syrus Marcus Ware, Taus Makhacheva, Trevor Paglen and Yalda Afsah. Curators: Georg Diez and Nicolaus Schafhausen Research Curators: Lena Baumgartner und Frances Fürst