An exhibition centring the global water crisis opens at the Museum of Arts & Crafts in Hamburg, Germany on 14 March 2024.

Entitled Water Pressure: Designing for the Future, the exhibition showcases 75 innovative works from the fields of design, architecture, art and science, based in many cases on natural principles.

Water, be that too much or too little, clean or unsafe, is regarded as one of the most pressing global challenges, with 40% of the world's population already affected by water scarcity and insecurity. The museum displays ideas and proposals to illuminate the potential to shape a radically different future.

Curated in five parts, the exhibition will present ideas and solutions to these realities as well as challenges such as flooding, pollution, and disrupted hydrological cycles. Specific attention will be on the port city of Hamburg and the current and future challenges it faces from flooding and water shortages.

The exhibition begins with a brief chronology of water, spanning ancient civilisations through the industrialisation of water and water infrastructure to the present period of ecological transition.

The first chapter, Water Stories, is a collage of stories illustrated by objects from different eras and cultures. Drawn from museum collections, and loans from other local institutions, the exhibition illuminates the cultural significance of water and presents the many ancestral and indigenous practices that inspire nature-based solutions today.

The second chapter, Bodily Waters, explores the intimate connection to water inside and outside the body, from Rose-Lynn Fisher’s photo series on tears, to wastewater monitoring to detect diseases such as SARS-CoV-2. Alternative approaches to sanitation such as the Finnish death of the flushing toilet, and the Goldeimer dry toilet from Hamburg will demonstrate a different understanding of wastewater.

Global experiences

In response to several cities experiencing the prospect of running out of tap water, as happened in Cape Town, South Africa in 2018, the third chapter, Thirsty Cities, looks at water management challenges and the innovative solutions being tested by cities in different climate zones, including repurposing ancient water systems in Chennai, India and floating architecture in Lagos, Nigeria.

The fourth chapter, Ecosystems: Land and Ocean, explores how policymakers and designers are implementing alternative approaches that help to restore the balance between nature and humans that have long-dammed rivers, drained wetlands, or abstracted water from aquifers devastating ecosystems, biodiversity, and hydrological cycles. For example, the wastewater garden project Eden in Iraq and the Living Breakwaters project in New York, US.

After opening at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg from 14 March - 13 October 2024, the exhibition will travel to the Museum für Gestaltung in Zürich, Switzerland from 29 November 2024 to 30 March 2025 and the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria, from spring 2025.

The exhibition has been curated in collaboration with the Jane Withers studio which has a long-term interest in the role of design in shaping a sustainable future, recently curating Super Vernaculars – Design for a Regenerative Future in Ljubljana, Slovenia, 1% Water & Our Future at Z33 Belgium, and Water Futures at A/D/O, New York.