Central PMQ｜deTour 2025 Design Festival 'The Shape of Yeraning'

Description

Organised by PMQ with generous support from Hong Kong’s Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency, deTour 2025 opens its doors from 28 November to 7 December.

Curated by designer and design curator, Adonian Chan, this edition unfolds under the banner of “The Shape of Yearning” (想望之器). deTour 2025 invites us to explore this journey across the “Design Trichotomy”: Envisioning, the questions we seek to resolve; Idealising, the futures we hope to shape; and Believing, the convictions that compel us to create.

Featuring 17 installations and exhibits, this year’s festival brings together designers from Hong Kong, Chinese Mainland, Switzerland, Japan, the United States, the Philippines, and Italy. International Collaboration is designed by Encor Studio from Switzerland. Through delicate use of light and electrochromic films, as well as sound and visual composition, the Studio turned the Qube within PMQ into a living, responsive canvas. This minimalist installation offers unforgettable immersive sensory experience and invites the audience to explore the integration of technology and design, while reawakening memory and evoking traces of time.

The curator also highlights four Feature Exhibitions to interpret this year’s theme. “Home Ecology – The Philo Modular System”, by Hong Kong creative duo TOUN 亠, reimagines urban flexibility. Aluminium components can be freely assembled into varied forms, transforming homes into dynamic, ever-evolving spaces that inspire adaptable and sustainable living. “Instrument.Play.Graphics – Modular Graphic Synthesizer -”, by award-winning Japanese designer Shunta Sakamoto, builds upon and elevate his signature series, translating audience interaction into visual imagery, merging sight and sound to rediscover the joy of “playing with design”. Italian designer Lucia Massari takes inspiration from the Renaissance master Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s paintings of the same name in her “”primavera”" lamp series. By continuing the Venetian glassmaking tradition while infusing it with bold, contemporary colours, breathing new life into a centuries-old craft. Studio Nopqrst, a London-based Hong Kong creative studio presents “Trueform”, which transforms the traces left by torn street posters into handcrafted images, sculptures, AR models and AI generated videos. By revealing the beauty within fragments, the work reflects on design’s intrinsic value beyond form and function—and on humanity’s irreplaceable role in the age of artificial intelligence.

In addition, 12 outstanding works selected through an open call showcase the diversity and creative vitality of this year’s participants, drawing inspiration from AI generation, architecture and cityscape, sound design, innovative materials, and even MBTI personality theory. The festival will also feature over 40 workshops, 12 Creative Voice dialogues, performances and book clubs, 80 guided tours, and the family-friendly programme “deTour Kids”. Join us at PMQ to immerse yourself in Hong Kong’s annual celebration of design—and to explore its boundless possibilities.