The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s misfortunes have often eclipsed its good news, with ongoing armed conflicts and most recently an Ebola outbreak. Much of the world knows little of the country’s vibrant arts scene, and last weekend in the capital, Kinshasa, models showed off daring new looks dreamed up by local designers on the catwalk. (Photo by Olivia Acland/The Guardian)

Every once and a while an artistic endeavor is so bold, so courageous and so innovative we are left speechless in its wake. Today, that project is “Pizza in the Wild”. The brainchild of Los Angeles-based photographer Jonpaul Douglass, the Instagram series that is so much more follows unsupervised pizzas – pepperoni pizzas, to be exact – living the L.A. life.

Justin Rowe creates these magical sculptures from hand cut books and found images with the help of just a touch of gum arabic and 24 carat gold or palladium leaf. Some are very much in the realms of fairy stories like the one above, but my favourites are the stories below where Justin’s skill brings the book’s own illustrations to life.

“Photographer Mario Testino shot Jennifer Lopez wearing a variety of sports and boxing gear for the cover story of V Magazine’s new “Sports Issue” (no. 76 Spring 2012). The piece, entitled “Tha Lady Is A Champ” was styled by Carine Roitfeld, and sees J. Lo rocking a jock strap, boxing gloves, various leather jackets, robes and often not much else. Jennifer is looking as good as ever”.

The eighth annual Nipponbashi Street Festa stamped Osaka March 20, 2012 (Nipponbashi is Osaka’s geek district – much like Akihabara is for Tokyo). Cosplayers turned up in colourful outfits, dressing as characters from their favourite manga, anime, and video games. The street was closed to cars, and otaku flooded the streets, snapping pics, cosplaying, and hanging out.

This latest photo series by Anelia Loubser, a photographer in Cape Town, reminds us that even the simplest change in perspective can change how things look drastically. By selectively cropping and flipping the dark portraits in her “Alienation” series, Loubser makes basic human portraits look like creepy alien close-ups.

Australian artist Polixeni Papapetrou trends the line between fantasy/theatre, mythology/reality, archetype/play, male/female, child/adult and animal/human. As with all her work the series The Dreamkeepers tells a story that includes her autobiographical relationship with her children, but it also says a lot more about the condition of childhood - its place in our culture and how we react to images of children in photography.