Virtual Design Festival partners with Ron Arad, Li Edelkoort, Dutch Design Week, Serpentine Galleries and more on digital cultural programme.

The Design Museum, Dutch Design Week, Design Indaba, Ventura Projects and The World Around are among cultural partners who will be contributing to Virtual Design Festival, which launches on 15 April.Creative partners include designer Ron Arad, artist Lucy McRae, musicians Beatie Wolfe and Rosey Chan, and trend forecaster Li Edelkoort, who will be creating content for the festival. Other partners include Lisbon's MAAT museum, Serpentine Galleries, What Design Can Do, London Festival of Architecture, Forward Festival, The Artling, Vienna Design Week, Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair and Stockholm Design Week, San Francisco Design Week, Sight Unseen, Pecha Kucha and architecture photography festival Zoomed In.

Conceived as the world's first online architecture and design festival, Virtual Design Festival will run from 15 April until 30 June and include contributions from designers, festivals, institutions and brands around the world.Curator Beatrice Galilee of New York architecture conference The World Around will curate a full day of interviews, essays and videos for Earth Day on 22 April.

Ron Arad will present a digital version of an exhibition celebrating the 90th anniversary of Mickey Mouse that was due to be held at OTI gallery in Los Angeles, but which has been cancelled due to coronavirus. Arad described VDF as "a great initiative to bring us all together at this extraordinary time".

Musicians Beatie Wolfe and Rosey Chan will contribute live interviews and performances. Terreform One co-president Mitchell Joachim will launch his new book. Architecture photographer Edmund Sumner will stream an exclusive series of movies featuring the work of Indian architects that he filmed in India earlier this year. In addition, as part of the festival, Dezeen will conduct a daily video interview with leading creatives around the world.

We will also premiere a series of exclusive video interviews with fashion designer Iris van Herpen, plus another series about influential architecture collective Archigram featuring exclusive interviews with Archigram co-founders Peter Cook and Dennis Crompton. Media partners include Observer Design, The Guardian and Dirty Furniture.All Virtual Design Festival content will be free to all readers everywhere, with no registration required.