Detour Shanghai: A Traveling Exhibition of Moleskine Notebooks

Oct. 5, 2010 - PRLog -- Detour is an international cultural project featuring notebooks created by world famous artists, architects, film directors, graphic designers, illustrators, and writers. Curated by Raffaella Guidobono this unique traveling exhibition has already taken place in London (2006), New York (2007), Paris (Spring 2008), Berlin (Fall 2008), Istanbul (Spring 2009), Tokyo (Fall 2009). Detour has just gone through its last step in Venice (August 2010) for the Architecture Biennale before its current destination: Shanghai, in October 2010.

24 internationally renowned Chinese authors, coming from several backgrounds supported Detour Shanghai with enthusiasm and passion, taking part to the show together with 26 international authors from previous Detour cities such as Ron Arad, Sigur Ros, the Campana Brothers, Giuseppe Amato, Giorgio Vigna, Giovanni Sollima, Karim Said, Tord Boontje. Among the Chinese authors: the film directors Jia Zhangke and Zhang Yuan, the fashion designer Joseph Li, the photographer Wang Xiaohui, the writer Han Han, the designer Alan Chan, the musician MCYan, the artist Ou Ning as well as many others. All Detour authors donated their notebooks to the project, supporting the lettera27 Foundation and the Ailing Foundation, both involved in cultural projects for the promotion of literacy, education, art and knowledge.

Detour is happening while the city of Shanghai is under the spotlight of several important events such as Shanghai EXPO and Shanghai Contemporary, attracting a diverse creative crowd from around the world.
The exhibition is taking place in one of the cultural landmarks of art and lifestyle in Shanghai – Bund18. All notebooks are showcased online on the Detour video and photo gallery together with short video-portraits of some of the authors.

The traveling group show Detour invites authors to compile and illustrate Moleskine notebooks with experienced knowledge insider tips for adventure hungry nomads. The flick through exhibition allows the public to connect closely with the authors and see their creative process “in the making”. Notebooks are positioned in special transparent boxes, with openings for hands, through which the public can actually touch and browse through the pages, after wearing special gloves. Some works contain extensive stories, some are just collectors of rough ideas jotted down quickly by the authors, and some others are turned into pieces of contemporary art and design.
The idea of this traveling exhibition originated from what was happening organically among all those creative professionals who use notebooks for sketching, jotting down ideas, painting, creative writing, organizing. In 2006, Moleskine with lettera27 started collecting these works, showcasing them to the public offline and online, thus creating an innovative format for a new kind of flick through exhibitions.

myDetour is a traveling project that takes place in conjuntion with Detour exhibitions. It is dedicated to the vast community of Moleskine enthusiasts around the world. Anyone who loves to paint, illustrate, write or create freely on Moleskine notebooks can participate and have the opportunity to display his/her work as part of the next myDetour exhibition and on the permanent myDetour online gallery. Those who wish to participate may do so by dropping their decorated notebook in special collecting boxes in 5 centrally located design stores and bookshops in Shanghai from October 21st to November 20th 2010. These same 5 stores are also displaying works collected in previous cities. myDetour Shanghai is connected to many other myDetour events which took place starting from 2007 in New York, Paris, Berlin, San Francisco, Tokyo, with hundreds of people sharing their creativity worldwide. All the notebooks collected in those cities are now part of the lettera27 collection and travel the world with Moleskine events and installations. Notebooks displayed in Shanghai were collected in Tokyo, Paris, San Francisco, Milan, Berlin, whereas notebooks collected in Shanghai will be displayed in the next Moleskine exhibitions in 2011. This is only one of many notebook sharing and notebook crossing experiences happening online and offline in all continents, most of them organized over the internet, with online image galleries, web videos and blogs. See for example: Sketchbook Project, UrbanSketchers, Moleskine Grand Tour, 1000Journals, and Sketch Crawls.

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About Moleskine: Moleskine was created as a brand in 1997, bringing back to life the legendary notebook used by artists and thinkers over the past two centuries, amongst them: Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Bruce Chatwin. A trusted and handy travel companion, the nameless black notebook held invaluable sketches, notes, stories, and ideas that would one day become famous paintings or the pages of beloved books. Today, Moleskine notebooks accompany creative people all over the world, from architects and designers to pop musicians and artists: they have become a symbol of latter-day nomadism, and they are intimately tied to the digital world through a network of websites, blogs, online groups, and digital archives.
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