HONG KONG, Nov. 11, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — deTour, the annual design festival in Hong Kong organized by PMQ and sponsored by Create Hong Kong of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, announces details of its unprecedented virtual festival as well as further information on the exhibition and event highlights. This year’s design festival, themed on Matter of Life, is curated by Hong Kong-based Trilingua Design Studio and will open from 27 November to 6 December 2020 with physical exhibition at PMQ, Central alongside a series of online events.

This year, deTour will launch an unparalleled online initiative to coincide with the physical festival to be held at PMQ. Through innovative design, deTour has been working together with web design studio WEEWUNGWUNG, who has teamed up with exhibition designer Architecture Commons to co-design an imaginary virtual experience for international and local audiences. Amid the global pandemic, interactions with friends and family members have never been more precious. Against this background, this year’s festival under the theme Matter of Life focuses on the collection of "spirit" in a year of uncertainty to come up with a virtual festival that aims to provide a platform for visitors from all over the world to connect, interact and communicate within the same space.

The virtual festival can be accessed through deTour’s website, where visitors can create their own animated avatar to explore and interact with the exhibits, virtually walk around the exhibition and talk to other visitors globally via an instant chatbox. These functions also aim to provide an alternate reality for deTour’s online visitors, giving them a sense of escapism from the current state of the world through gathering together in the virtual reality.

Furthermore, deTour is proud to invite the internationally renowned design studio Whatever Inc. to create a large-scale interactive commissioned work FLOCK for both the virtual festival and the exhibition at PMQ. Local visitors to the physical festival can create an avatar of themselves in a photo scanning booth at PMQ, and such avatars can fly alongside other visitors’ in a giant digital mural set up in the PMQ courtyard. For international visitors to be involved, they can also upload their photos to the deTour’s website, which will turn the photos into avatars and live-stream as a flock of flying people on the giant digital screen at PMQ. The giant digital screen will be operated throughout the design festival as well as on the deTour webpage.

Alongside the FLOCK by Whatever Inc. and the Feature Exhibition section which focuses on solution design – see more details here – the following designs will be showcased in deTour 2020’s Selected Entries section that explore the themes life in a pandemic, climate change, sustainability, and the role of design:

• Interactive Terrazzo — Disappearing Matter of Life by Common Ground Design (Hong Kong), is a terrazzo seat embedded with optical fibres that will illuminate in reacting to the visitors’ posture under a customized programming for visitors to discover the characteristics and potentials of terrazzo through personal experience.
• The Recycling Glass Brick Spiral by Arnold Wong, Keith Chan and Stephen Ip (Hong Kong) uses recycled glass bricks to create a spiral-shaped installation that brings people through a journey of different social distances, from the many to the self.
• MEMORI designed by XPLOR (Hong Kong) aims to preserve our transient yet beautiful encounters with art to soothe our anxiety in the time of worldwide adversity, by turning voice memos of blessings into visual images. Visitors can decode the hidden messages of the exhibit through the AR technology on the deTour website.
• airbank®️ by WARE (Hong Kong) is a work of design fiction and visitors can inhale fresh air from the air-freshening plant or fresh air packs in a fictional foggy showroom to experience the future apocalyptic world where fresh and clean air is a luxury.
• Cho Ching Chuen (Hong Kong)’s Pearl and Haystack is a documentary video that questions the role of design through a series of interviews with people from different walks of life, from butchers, fashion designers to art collectors and domestic helpers.
• Dryscape by Orient Occident Atelier (Hong Kong) is inspired by a Hong Kong tradition that elderly lay plants and fishes on the streets to dry. It will be an installation of dried, edible local plants that encourages the public to explore the food resources in their local environment.
• 4 Stages by WHITEGROUND (Hong Kong) aims to bring back the question of "Life" to the public, by telling a story from the origin of a life journey to its process of clinging, awakening and letting go.
• The Book of Ashes by h0nh1m (Chris Cheung, Hong Kong) invites visitors to perform a book burning ceremony at the festival to symbolize the decline of paper books in a digital age.

To coincide with the virtual festival and physical exhibition, deTour will host a robust program of Workshops and Design Dialogues. Targeting design lovers, kids and families, the creative Workshops will guide the participants to explore the application of design thinking and knowledge in daily life through exploration of materials, communication design, fashion design and food design. As for the Design Dialogues, they will be live streamed on the deTour’s website. Design Dialogues’ highlights are as below:

• Design Dialogues in Japan: a talk with Masashi Kawamura from Whatever Inc. on Creating Something during the Pandemic; and another one with Eisuke Tachikawa from NOSIGNER on PANDAID – Design Aid for Pandemic 
• The Transformation of ‘Tradition’: Cultural Imaginations in the Act of Design, hosted by local architect Charles Lai, with Dennis Cheung from Studio Ryte; Jacky Chan, Architect, The Hong Kong Institute of Architects (HKIA); and Vivian Wong, Architect, Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) as speakers
• Design Co-creation hosted by Eddy Hui, Design Educator, Hononary Secretary of Hong Kong Designers Association (HKDA), with Landscape Architect Paul Chan; Ron Leung, the Former HKDA Chairman; and Kay Chan, Social Innovator, Hong Kong Polytechnic University as speakers.

To register for deTour’s Workshops, please visit: https://www.ticketflap.com/detour2020workshops

For more details of and registration for Design Dialogues, please stay tuned to deTour’s social media platforms.

For further information about deTour 2020 design festival, please visit deTour’s website: detour.hk

Notes to Editors

Press Kit

Biographies of participating design units, full programming and images with captions for press use can be downloaded at the following link:

https://egnyte.suttoncomms.com/fl/PFA2BMb9DI

Media Reception and media tour:

Friday, 27 November 2020 14:00 -15:00

Opening Hours of deTour 2020’s physical festival:

Friday, 27 November to Sunday, 6 December 2020, 11:00 – 20:00, Free admission

About deTour

Organized by PMQ and sponsored by Create Hong Kong of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, deTour is an annual design festival in Hong Kong celebrating the works and ideas of local and overseas designers and creative talent. An event borne to connect the local and international design communities, deTour boosts a curated line-up of exhibitions, workshops, dialogues, debates, and networking events, invites both the public and design professionals to engage and experience design in various perspectives.

Devoted to supporting local design talent, deTour stands as an unparalleled collaborative design festival for local and overseas designers through enabling the realisation of creative sparks to design solutions. At deTour, everyone is encouraged to witness and explore the unwavering role of design for a better tomorrow.

About PMQ

Located in the heart of Hong Kong’s SoHo, PMQ is the landmark of creative industries in Asia’s World City. PMQ has been revived into a creative hub since 2014, housing over 100 Hong Kong Designers, showcasing workshops and studios featuring lifestyle, fashion and accessories, architecture, gifts & premium, homeware and a wide range of other designer goods. Today, PMQ has become the creative platform in supporting up and coming creative talent as well as fostering a community of patrons and lovers of creativity, design and heritage. It is also the hottest venue in town for international arts and cultural events from Hong Kong and all around the world.

About Create Hong Kong

Create Hong Kong (CreateHK) is a dedicated agency set up by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR Government) in June 2009. It is under the Communications and Creative Industries Branch of the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau and dedicated to spearheading the development of creative industries in Hong Kong. Its strategic foci are nurturing talent and facilitating start-ups, exploring markets, and promoting Hong Kong as Asia’s creative capital and fostering a creative atmosphere in the community. CreateHK has been sponsoring PMQ to organize deTour and other projects to promote Hong Kong design.

Disclaimer: The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region provides funding support to the project only, and does not otherwise take part in the project. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in these materials/events (or by members of the project team) are those of the project organizers only and do not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Communications and Creative Industries Branch of the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau, Create Hong Kong, the CreateSmart Initiative Secretariat or the CreateSmart Initiative Vetting Committee.