American artists have drawn criticism after making stunning, intricate sculptures by pouring hot liquid aluminium into anthills.

The 26th annual Visa Pour l’Image, the “Cannes Film Festival” of photojournalism kicks off, filling the French city of Perpignan with more than 3,000 of the world’s best photojournalists and photo editors, along with agencies from around the world. This year’s Visa Pour l’Image showcases 26 exhibitions around the city. Photo: Christians looting a Muslim shop in the “Combattants” district of Bangui. (Photo by Pierre Terdjman/Paris Match)

Jean-François Leroy launched Visa Pour l’Image, the international photojournalism festival, in Perpignan in 1989. Before heading up the festival, Leroy was shooting reportage for the agency Sipa Press and also working for Photo-Reporter, Le Photographe, Photo-Revue and Photo Magazine. He is the chairman of the company Images Evidence. Photo: 2008 Visa d'or Feature: Brent Stirton. Conservation Rangers from an Anti-Poaching unit work with locals to evacuate the bodies of four Mountain Gorrillas killed in mysterious circumstances in the park, July 24, 2007, Virunga National Park, Eastern Congo. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Exclusive by Getty Images)

Ukrainians pour water on each other on a street in Lviv, Ukraine, 02 May 2016. The tradition of pouring water was an ancient spring ritual of cleansing on first Monday after Orthodox Easter. (Photo by Mykola Tys/EPA)

Boys and younger men from the Ilosvai Selymes Peter folk dance group pour buckets of cold water on a girl as they attend the traditional watering of local girls on Easter Monday in Komarovce, Velke Trakany, Slovakia on April 10, 2023. During Easter Holy Week, the ancient tradition of Easter sprinkling known as “watering of the girls” when Hungarian boys visit their female friends, recite poems, and pour water on them, and in exchange the girls offer the boys food and drink. (Photo by Robert Nemeti/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

A tree frog uses a leaf as an umbrella in pouring rain in Karacabey floodplain near the city of Bursa, Turkey in the first decade of June 2023. (Photo by Savas Sener/Solent News & Photo Agency)

A man pours fake fuel on the face of a protester as they perform at a demonstration against the fossil fuel industry during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 7, 2021. (Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters)