Toure, a Gambian salt harvester, holds a basket filled with the salt collected from the crust of the bottom of the Lake Retba (Pink Lake) in Senegal on March 16, 2021. Lake Retba, divided from the Atlantic Ocean by a narrow corridor of dunes, owes its name to the pink waters caused by the Dunaliella salina algae and is known for its high salt content, up to 40% in some areas. (Photo by Marco Longari/AFP Photo)

The villas of Marabe Al Dhafra in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates are home to approximately 2,000 people. Located in one of the hottest regions of the world, the record high temperature here is 49.2C° (120.6F°). (Photo by Benjamin Grant/Penguin Random House)

Artist Victor Nunes combines every-day objects with simple illustrations to turn them into pictures of faces, animals and other playful scenes. His images invite us to look at the world differently and find creative images in our surroundings. Nunes’ art is a great example of pareidolia, which is our propensity to give meaning to random objects (like in this post about seeing faces in random objects). It’s the reason why we associate a smiley face with a human face and why some of Nunes’ pieces of popcorn or bread resemble faces to us.

Fisherwomen laying barrels with salt in preparation for herring curing, 1937. (Photo by Topical Press Agency)

Tourists sit around a bonfire on the Makgadikgadi salt pan in Botswana. (Photo by Yang Mengxi/Xinhua News Agency/Barcroft Media)

Route engineer Richard Winter stands in front of a pile of road salt at the Birchanger Depot on November 8, 2011 near Bishop's Stortford, England. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

A university in the Philippines in March 2024 has come up with a novel way to stop students cheating in exams – by getting them to wear hats in the shape of animated characters and random objects such as a crate of beer. (Photo by Angelo Ebora/beampix/Solent news)

For our latest mission, we put a Carnegie Hall orchestra in the middle of New York City and placed an empty podium in front of the musicians with a sign that read, “Conduct Us.” Random New Yorkers who accepted the challenge were given the opportunity to conduct this world-class orchestra. The orchestra responded to the conductors, altering their tempo and performance accordingly. This project was a collaboration with Carnegie Hall and Ensemble ACJW.