The One With Detour 2011 – “Useless” Arts In Hong Kong

It was by a stroke of luck when I “detoured” into Detour 2011.

I was actually doing a “shop walk” in Soho (hence the tired eyes) when the eye-catching posters and banners caught my eyes. It’s Detour! I heard so much about it, but never realised it was held in Central. Had I known I would have visited earlier.

The exhibition, which serves to highlight the impact of irresponsible consumerism and encourage eco-living (hence the theme “use – less”, get it?), was held at the old police married quarters. The two six-stories buildings with its large courtyard were proven to be an intimidating and exhilarating venue for Detour this year.

There were many different themes to the exhibition, each uses “cheap” material constructed creatively into pieces of installation arts.

I particularly like this one – a structure built with empty plastic bottles and illuminated with changing lights.

A three-dimensional optical illusion. You would think the cubes towards the back were smaller because they were further away… but look again, the room is not that deep. In fact, the differently sized cubes were all hanging close to each other, accurately placed to deceive your eyes.

How about a series of taxi cab lights? Apparently these lights were sourced from Shenzhen and it was quite a logistical feat to put together.

This room housed a piece of “art” using QR codes. Yes, you need to be there to experience it, using your smartphone.

How about arts using empty film cartridges? This portrait is nothing short of amazing.

You can even “adopt” some plants in another room, complete with instructions on how to take care of it. Your plants is yours to water, nurture and kept alive throughout the two-week long exhibition.

This was easily my favourite. A room “darkened” with “greens” on the wall.

Not only I like the colour contrast, but you gotta see what was on the table.

Was that for real? Did some artiste really broke open an Apple laptop in the name of arts? I took a closer look….

Yes, he (or she) really did. The laptop was real (albeit a very old model).

The exhibition covered the entire open ground, and the first three stories of both buildings. By the time I covered the ground level, I was dead exhausted.

But not before I went on to the “design market”.

It’s arts for sales! The stalls were made up of entirely recyclable material, and they are only open on weekends. Featuring some astounding work of local artiste, they are affordable, but almost everything is at least $100 and above. And cash only – so if you intend to shop, please bring enough cash!

My favorite was easily this speaker made out of empty carton bottle, which because of its acoustic property made the sound quality very good. It’s portable, can be hooked to your iPhone, and light up as you wish. I can already imagine how handy this gonna be when you head to beach, for that BBQ party at rooftops, even in my room…

Right. So Detour 2011 is definitely worth a visit. Be prepared to spend almost the entire day at the place. The exhibition ends on this Sunday, Dec 11.

Click here for all the photos I have taken from that day. Now I wonder if I should make a return visit…