On April 22, 2020, The World Around presented Earth Day 2020 as part of Dezeen’s inaugural Virtual Design Festival (VDF). This online event marked the organization’s first digital-only curatorial initiatives, delivered in response to the global COVID-19 lockdown, and aligned with its founding mission to make the most progressive ideas in architecture and design accessible to a wide, international audience. Broadcast globally in collaboration with Dezeen and sponsored by Facebook, the series of curated conversations brought together a diverse group of practitioners whose work engages with ecology, justice, infrastructure, and planetary care. The program featured pre-recorded video presentations, interviews, and newly commissioned short films by architects, artists, designers, and researchers.

Contributors to the Earth Day 2020 program included Kunlé Adeyemi (NLÉ), Cooking Sections, Thomas Thwaites & Aric Chen, Nelly Ben Hayoun & Sepake Angiama, Harriet Harriss paired with philosopher Timothy Morton and many others. Topics explored included climate adaptation, decolonial land practices, environmental storytelling, and experimental infrastructures for a changing world. The symposium was curated by The World Around’s founder and executive director Beatrice Galilee, and reflected the organization’s early commitment to interdisciplinary, socially engaged, and ecologically conscious programming.