19 individually themed and hand crafted art suites have been newly designed by creatives from across the world – from a swedish artist who made a giant snow elephant in the room, to a french team who fused snow, ice and disco into a groovy sleeping experience. Each year, the hotel creates a new series of artist-designed accommodation spaces that add to the existing landscape of private rooms. (Photo by Icehotel.com/Exclusivepix Media)

Founded in 1989, the Icehotel in Swedish Lapland is built from the snow up each year, using ice from the local river. The rooms are designed by international artists and this year feature spacemen and an ice queen. The hotel has 35 suites, featuring ice carvings designed by 36 different artists from 17 countries. (Photo by Asaf Kliger/IceHotel/The Guardian)

Beneath the Swedish capital lies an intricate web of underground train lines. More than 90 of the 100 stations in the 110km tunnel system, sometimes referred to as “the world’s longest art gallery”, have been decorated with paintings, installations, mosaics and sculptures by 150 artists since the 1950s. After spending a couple of weeks exploring arctic Norway and Sweden, London-based travel photographer Conor MacNeill headed underground to capture images of the metro stations. Here: A rainbow arcs over a girl on the platform of Stadion station. (Photo by Conor MacNeill/The Observer)

Inside the Afar Triangle in Ethiopia’s Danakil desert, camel caravans are used to carry salt. For centuries, the essential mineral has been mined by the Afar people, known for their ability to withstand extremes. The terrain is rugged, travelers are scarce and so are motor vehicles, where the average annual temperature is the highest in the world, and can rise to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, 50 degrees Celsius. (Photo by Ziv Koren/Polaris)

“Hayley Dee Westenra (born 10 April 1987) is a New Zealand soprano, classical crossover artist, songwriter and UNICEF Ambassador. Her first internationally released album, Pure, reached #1 on the UK classical charts in 2003 and has sold more than two million copies worldwide. Pure is the fastest-selling international début classical album to date, having made Westenra an international star at age 16. In August 2006, she joined the Irish group Celtic Woman, was featured on their Celtic Woman: A New Journey CD and DVD, toured with them on their 2007 Spring Tour, and also was featured on their DVD, The Greatest Journey: Essential Collection, released in 2008”. – Wikipedia

Photo: The world's biggest-selling soprano, Hayley Westenra, has today been announced as the voice of ITV's coverage of this years Rugby World Cup, with her version of “World In Union”. The multi-million selling artist releases her fifth album, “Paradiso”, that has been produced by film composing legend Ennio Morricone, on 29th August. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

“Theyyam”. Preparation for the Theyyam performance in the surroundings of Kasaragod city. Theyyam is a popular ritual dance form of North Kerala, particularly in Kannur and Kasargod districts. The Theyyam represents a mythological, divine or heroic character. Make up of Theyyams is done by specialist. There are different types of face painting for which primarily and secondary colours are used. Therefore it is essential that the makeup man should have perfect knowledge of primary and secondary colour combinations. Sometimes, it takes several hours to paint each face. Photo location: Kasaragod, India. (Photo and caption by Rafal Ziejewski/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Modern art is truly fascinating. Not in a way that it produces some novel things that will fascinate future generations for decades and even centuries to come. No, that is very far from the truth. On the contrary, modern art is essentially anything (yes, any little thing) that is a bit unusual and was created by a famous person. Let’s take the creation of Antoine Bridier-Nahmias for example. His brainchild is a set of pictures of petri dishes that were contaminated by various cultures of fungi. If this is art, I missed my chance of becoming famous when I accidentally left a piece of bread in a bag in a cupboard for about six months, and didn’t take a picture of the rather shocking results that awaited me when I finally discovered it. (Photo by Antoine Bridier-Nahmias)