Hong Kong’s Annual Design Festival deTour 2024
- Written by Media Outreach
Over 80 Local and Overseas Creative Communities Engaging in Large-scale Installations & Exhibitions, Workshops, and Creative VoicePowering Inner Growth Through Design HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach Newswire - 29 November 2024 - Presented by PMQ and sponsored by the Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency (CCIDA), formerly known as Create Hong Kong (CreateHK), deTour design festival will take place from 29th November to 15th December 2024 at PMQ, Central. This year, the exhibition has been extended to seventeen days, free of charge, and is open to all design enthusiasts, students, and the public. Through large-scale exhibitions, workshops, guided tours and Creative Voice design forums, deTour 2024 showcases the creative works among the local and international creative communities, exploring the underlying meaning of the connection between design and one's inner strength! 
The Theme of deTour 2024:Having→Being: Designing Inner Worlds Design has long been seen as an instrument for solving problems. Adonian Chan, Curator of deTour 2024 was inspired by the book To Have or To Be by Erich Fromm, a psychologist. He found that with the advancing production methods and material abundance, design has gradually become a tool to produce desire, and a person's worth is judged based on their possessions. This change echoes Erich Fromm's concept of the "mode of having" in his book To Have or To Be. Fromm argues that society frequently judges a person's worth based on their possessions. Yet he asserts that true value lies not in what we "have" but in who we "are"— the "mode of being". In deTour 2024, the Curator and designers will uncover underexplored possibilities in design, emphasising how design enriches one's inner power. Not only does design present the outlook of an environment or a product, but it is also a catalyst for one's inner growth, well-being, and creative expression. Through careful consideration and curation, as well as the environment, product, and experience provided in deTour2024, it aims to help people create a space and a tool that reflects their inner true self and provide inspiration for a deeper dialogue and connection. Starting from the Courtyard: Opening a Dialogue and Connections with 17 Installations and Exhibitions deTour2024 exhibits a total of 17 installations from local and overseas designers throughout PMQ. Walking through the entrance tunnel to the courtyard, a feature exhibition of "Air-Scape", "Capturing Qi (氣) ", and "Passage to the Lake", from three groups of local and overseas young designers, unveils the path to reflection. Other installations are displayed through the courtyard, Hollywood Garden, and the specific levels in Block A. Every installation is a dialogue to inner growth, allowing us to rethink how design has influenced our lives and environment, including experimental works that explore new possibilities through deTour 2024. In addition, the seventeen-day design festival has 40 workshops and 13 Creative Voice sessions, bringing a series of free exciting experiences to the public. International Collaboration: Kimchi and Chips —— "REWORLD Type 2" Founded in 2009 by Seoul-based artists Mimi Son and Elliot Woods, Kimchi and Chips is acclaimed for merging art, technology, and philosophy. Their large-scale installations explore the intersections of light, space, and perception, creating immersive experiences that blur reality and illusion. "REWORLD Type 2" is an innovative urban screen that constructs images not with traditional LEDs, but by remixing fragments from the surrounding cityscape. Urban screens have become a principal material of the built environment, and are used to communicate ideas, convey ambitions, provide instructions, and contribute to the creation of a city's aesthetic and mythology. Kimchi and Chips quote Donna J. Haraway, "It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories." REWORLD is a screen that generates images solely from the city's existing elements, reimagining and recycling reality into new messages and ideas. This screen operates using more than 1,000 of micro-prisms actuated by precision motors, which selectively refract the surroundings to form new images, showcasing a stunning "reworld". Feature Exhibitions: About Living Attitudes – Balance, Feng Shui, Penjing and Lakes 1. Wich Chau, Match Chen — "A place of Being" Wich Chau is a Hong Kong designer who adopts an experimental approach to designing furniture, public spaces, and installation art, delving into the potential of urban environments through thought-provoking inquiries. His work "Wave of Growth" was featured in the MoMA-published book "Uneven Growth@2015". Since 2020, he has tried oil painting, drawing on elements of science fiction, surrealism, and futuristic imagination to provoke contemplation about the universe and existence. Match Chen, co-founder of KaCaMa Design Lab in Hong Kong, has rich...
The Theme of deTour 2024:Having→Being: Designing Inner Worlds Design has long been seen as an instrument for solving problems. Adonian Chan, Curator of deTour 2024 was inspired by the book To Have or To Be by Erich Fromm, a psychologist. He found that with the advancing production methods and material abundance, design has gradually become a tool to produce desire, and a person's worth is judged based on their possessions. This change echoes Erich Fromm's concept of the "mode of having" in his book To Have or To Be. Fromm argues that society frequently judges a person's worth based on their possessions. Yet he asserts that true value lies not in what we "have" but in who we "are"— the "mode of being". In deTour 2024, the Curator and designers will uncover underexplored possibilities in design, emphasising how design enriches one's inner power. Not only does design present the outlook of an environment or a product, but it is also a catalyst for one's inner growth, well-being, and creative expression. Through careful consideration and curation, as well as the environment, product, and experience provided in deTour2024, it aims to help people create a space and a tool that reflects their inner true self and provide inspiration for a deeper dialogue and connection. Starting from the Courtyard: Opening a Dialogue and Connections with 17 Installations and Exhibitions deTour2024 exhibits a total of 17 installations from local and overseas designers throughout PMQ. Walking through the entrance tunnel to the courtyard, a feature exhibition of "Air-Scape", "Capturing Qi (氣) ", and "Passage to the Lake", from three groups of local and overseas young designers, unveils the path to reflection. Other installations are displayed through the courtyard, Hollywood Garden, and the specific levels in Block A. Every installation is a dialogue to inner growth, allowing us to rethink how design has influenced our lives and environment, including experimental works that explore new possibilities through deTour 2024. In addition, the seventeen-day design festival has 40 workshops and 13 Creative Voice sessions, bringing a series of free exciting experiences to the public. International Collaboration: Kimchi and Chips —— "REWORLD Type 2" Founded in 2009 by Seoul-based artists Mimi Son and Elliot Woods, Kimchi and Chips is acclaimed for merging art, technology, and philosophy. Their large-scale installations explore the intersections of light, space, and perception, creating immersive experiences that blur reality and illusion. "REWORLD Type 2" is an innovative urban screen that constructs images not with traditional LEDs, but by remixing fragments from the surrounding cityscape. Urban screens have become a principal material of the built environment, and are used to communicate ideas, convey ambitions, provide instructions, and contribute to the creation of a city's aesthetic and mythology. Kimchi and Chips quote Donna J. Haraway, "It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories." REWORLD is a screen that generates images solely from the city's existing elements, reimagining and recycling reality into new messages and ideas. This screen operates using more than 1,000 of micro-prisms actuated by precision motors, which selectively refract the surroundings to form new images, showcasing a stunning "reworld". Feature Exhibitions: About Living Attitudes – Balance, Feng Shui, Penjing and Lakes 1. Wich Chau, Match Chen — "A place of Being" Wich Chau is a Hong Kong designer who adopts an experimental approach to designing furniture, public spaces, and installation art, delving into the potential of urban environments through thought-provoking inquiries. His work "Wave of Growth" was featured in the MoMA-published book "Uneven Growth@2015". Since 2020, he has tried oil painting, drawing on elements of science fiction, surrealism, and futuristic imagination to provoke contemplation about the universe and existence. Match Chen, co-founder of KaCaMa Design Lab in Hong Kong, has rich...