Dutch designer Maarten Baas has explained how he has adapted to coronavirus lockdown in a short video message recorded for Virtual Design Festival.

"Hello, this is Maarten Baas from my studio in the Netherlands," says Baas. "And this is how I cope with the current situation".

Baas shot to fame in 2002 with his graduation project, Smoke, which saw him scorch items of furniture with a blowtorch.

More recently, he has worked on a number of installations and video-based projects such as his 2014 fairground-inspired Baas is in Town exhibition in Milan, and his Real Time Schiphol clock, which features a looping 24-hour movie of him painting and erasing hands on a giant clock face.

"So obviously, I hope you feel inspired," Baas concludes at the end of his video.

Send us a video message

In the run-up to the launch of Virtual Design Festival on Wednesday, Dezeen invited architects, designers, artists and industry figures to record video messages from lockdown. We also put out an open call for submissions from readers - read the brief here.

We plan to publish one clip every day during the festival, plus a montage featuring over 30 of the messages we've already received with be published on Wednesday to launch VDF. See all VDF video messages here.

Virtual Design Festival

Virtual Design Festival runs from 15 April to 20 June. For more information, or to be added to the mailing list, contact us at [email protected].