Detour 2011 is no longer just a side event

Annual design festival Detour isn’t much of a "detour" anymore -- it’s more like the main attraction.

Launched three years ago as a side event to Business of Design Week (BODW), the art and design festival has quickly become one of the most exciting events on Hong Kong’s cultural calendar.

“It’s not just design,” says art advisor Jehan Chu, who is running this year’s festival with architect Leo Chan. “It’s a creative culture festival. We realize that everything has become interdisciplinary now and this reflects that.”

This year’s edition of Detour returns to the former Police Married Quarters (PMQ) on Aberdeen Street after a stint last year at the old Victoria Prison. From November 25 to December 11, visitors will be treated to a program of design installations, workshops, discussions, outdoor film and live music.

Installations and workshops will be spread throughout the PMQ’s old apartments, which have remained essentially unchanged since they were built in the 1960s.

The complex was saved from redevelopment last year and will be turned into a permanent design hub that will open in 2014.

“We want people to explore the site as much as the festival,” says Chu. The PMQ’s spacious courtyard will tie everything together, with movies, music and presentations on a smaller version of the bamboo stages used for Cantonese opera performances.

"Useless" design

There will also be large-scale design exhibits in the courtyard, like Shanghai group SuperNature’s Half-Life installation, which walks visitors through the half-life of various decomposing objects.

“You are confronted by all the things you throw away,” says Chu. That fits in well with this year’s festival theme, “Useless,” which probes the environmental impact of design and the opportunities it presents to lead a more sustainable lifestyle.

Some of the workshops drive home this goal, like "So ... Soap!", in which participants will learn to create their own all-natural soap.

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Choi Sai Ho will perform at the Detour 2011 opening.

Detour’s focus on sustainability goes beyond this year’s festival. Behind the scenes, organizers have made some important changes that they hope will help Detour avoid the stagnation that afflicts many established Hong Kong cultural events.

For the first time, Chu and Chan have invited a guest curator, Idn magazine director Chris Ng, to build this year’s Detour program. It’s something they hope to continue in the years to come.

“We want to provide a platform for curators, so that not everything is done by us,” says Chu. “It just creates a lot more opportunities. It expands the network -- there are a lot of people that Chris knows that Leo and I haven’t worked with before.”

By the same token, Detour co-founder Alvin Yip, who ran the festival last year with architect Marisa Yiu, has taken a step back and will now focus exclusively on developing the Design Mart, a showcase for indie design products.

“Designers have to learn how to earn their own bread and butter,” says Yip.

This year’s Design Mart will give young designers more opportunities to promote themselves through videos and workshops. It also featured an open call for participants this year, though the selection process is just as rigorous as ever.

“We reject anything that is not a creative product from Hong Kong,” says Yip. “You go to the PMQ because of the quality. It’s got more to offer than the Lunar New Year market in Victoria Park.”

Six reasons to check out this year’s Detour

Designer show-and-tell at Pecha Kucha Night.

Music fans in Hong Kong are buzzed for this year’s free outdoor Clockenflap music and arts festival, which will feature international acts like The Cribs, Santigold and Bombay Bicycle Club alongside local favorites Poubelle International and DP.

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You can get a sneak peak at Clockenflap’s program with a free concert on December 9 at 8:30 p.m.

Exuberantly experimental electronic musician Choi Sai-ho will be playing a can’t-miss audio-visual set on November 25 at 8 p.m.

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2. Learn how to be useful

Here is what you can learn at Detour’s designer workshops: make a pinhole camera; make bags and accessories from recycled fabric; use your bicycle to generate electricty; make furniture from recycled wood; silkscreen your own posters and T-shirts; make organic soap; make a critter friend from recycled materials; create a sketchbook from scraps of discarded wallpaper. The workshops fill up quickly so visit detour.hk to register.

3. Broaden your horizons

Business of Design Week’s partner country this year is Germany, so Detour took 10 young Hong Kong designers, sent them to Berlin and saw what creative juices the trip conjured up.

Some of the resulting projects include a pinhole photo booth by Martin Cheung, Kenny Li’s interactive “Berlin Wall,” which features a different aspect of Hong Kong creativity in each brick, and a compost system and planter inspired by Berlin’s favorite street snack, the currywurst.

A group of emerging German designers will also be at Detour to create an installation overseen by influential designers Saskia Diez and Stefan Diez.

Belgium will also play a starring role at Detour with installations from 30 Belgian architects and designers and an opening reception on November 29 at 6 p.m.

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4. Bike your own movie

British-Australian creative group Magnificent Revolution will capitalize on the resurgent popularity of bicycles with Cycle-In Cinema, a pedal-powered movie theatre that will screen local and international short films on December 2 and 3 at 8 p.m.

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5. Pecha Kucha Night

Detour will host two editions of the popular show-and-tell program on November 26 at 8 p.m. and December 3 at 7 p.m.

Hear about exciting new art and design projects from local creative talents and guest designers from Germany and Belgium.

6. Go shopping

On November 27, December 4 and December 11 from 2 to 6 p.m., the Planet D Design Mart will feature products from more than 70 up-and-coming designers, artists and publishers.

New this year is D.Tell, which features videos and interactive sessions with Design Mart participants.

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