Week nine of Virtual Design Festival featured live interviews with Barnaba Fornasetti and Ini Archibong, as well as a celebration of World Oceans Day and the 2020 AHEAD Americas awards.

Virtual Design Festival, the world's first online design festival, runs until 10 July. For the full schedule of upcoming events, visit dezeen.com/vdf/schedule.

Monday 8 June

Interview with Arthur Mamou-Mani: With this year's Burning Man festival cancelled, architect Arthur Mamou-Mani took viewers on a virtual reality tour of the timber amphitheatre he designed for the occasion.

In the preceding interview with Dezeen's editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs, he discussed VR's possible applications in the design process and where the technology is headed.

Screentime with Parley for the Oceans: In honour of World Oceans Day, Cyrill Gutsch of the Parley for the Oceans initiative gave a talk rallying for a Material Revolution, in which all materials harmful to the ecosystem are either redesigned or replaced.

Tuesday 9 June

VDF x Philips TV & Sound: In an interview with Marcus Fairs, Philips TV & Sound's chief designer Rod White introduced the brand's latest collection of portable audio accessories. Created in collaboration with Georg Jensen, these are embellished with the Danish designer's trademark silverwork.

Screentime with Ini Archibong and Chrissa Amuah: As part of our ongoing Screentime series of live interviews, Switzerland-based designer Ini Archibong and Africa by Design founder Chrissa Amuah discussed the importance of platforming black and other minority voices in the industry.

Wednesday 10 June

Screentime with Teresa van Dongen: In a live talk, lighting designer Teresa van Dongen looked back at some of the most formative projects of her career, including a sustainable light source powered by living bacteria.

Fornasetti live interview: Barnaba Fornasetti of legacy Italian design house Fornasetti introduced the brand's latest collection in an interview with Marcus Fairs and gave viewers a remote tour of the new Milan showroom.

VDF x AHEAD: This year's AHEAD Americas awards ceremony was reimagined as a virtual event hosted by Sleeper Magazine's editor-at-large Guy Dittrich and live-streamed as part of VDF.

An exclusive series of video interviews with some of the winners is still to come.

Thursday 11 June

VDF x Friedman Benda: As part of our collaboration with New York gallery Friedman Brenda, Dutch designer Joris Laarman spoke about his use of digital fabrication methods and explained why modern technology is "more magical than Harry Potter".

Friday 12 June

Screentime with Partisans: Alex Josephson of Canadian architecture studio Partisans joined Marcus Fairs for a live interview to discuss some of the practice's most high profile projects, including a masterplan for a local town that includes drone ports and fibre optics integrated into the streets and buildings.

VDF x Yuri Suzuki: In a live interview, designer Yuri Suzuki spoke about how his work explores the relationship between music and technology.

Previous weeks

Did you miss week eight? Read our summary of the highlights, including interviews with Ilse Crawford and Farshid Moussavi, plus a full-day takeover by Stockholm's ArkDes museum.

Did you miss week seven? Read our summary of the highlights, including an exclusive product launch and live interview with Tom Dixon as well as an all-star architects roundtable including Junya Ishigami and Counterspace.

Did you miss week five? Read our summary of the highlights, including interviews with Standard Architecture and Sauerbruch Hutton and the launch of an exclusive Archigram video series.

Did you miss week four? Read our summary of the highlights, including exclusive interviews with Carlo Ratti and Iris van Herpen, as well as a cocktail masterclass from the owner of Milan's Bar Basso.

Did you miss week three? Read our summary of the highlights, including a video message from Ben van Berkel and an exclusive screening of Gary Hustwit's Dieter Rams documentary.

Did you miss week two? Read the summary of the highlights from the second week, including Ron Arad, SO-IL, Kunlé Adeyemi, Nelly Ben Hayoun, Beatie Wolfe and Studio Drift.

Did you miss week one? Read the summary of the first week's highlights include live interviews with Li Edelkoort and Klein Dytham Architecture plus the now-legendary VDF launch movie.

Virtual Design Festival, the world's first digital design festival, runs from 15 April to 30 June 2020 and is sponsored by bathroom and kitchen manufacturer Grohe. For more information about VDF or to join the mailing list, email vdf@dezeen.com.

The post This week's VDF highlights include Partisans, Ini Archibong, Parley for the Oceans and a VR Burning Man temple tour appeared first on Dezeen.