Like many of our Interpret/Inspire challenges, the brief is simple; we start you off with an idea, or a train of thought, and the rest is entirely up to you...

This time around, we chose an exhibition to get the creative juices flowing, and we picked something particularly kooky to really rattle the mind. The Media Space at the London Science Museum was the destination, and Stranger Than Fiction was the show.

On display was the work of photographer Joan Fontcuberta, a man whose weird and wonderful photography seriously questions reality, even for those with the most creative of minds. Fontcuberta has made it his life's work to examine the truthfulness we associate with photographs and explores how easily reality can be distorted... leaving the viewer not sure what to believe anymore!

We pulled in three illustrators with completely different styles to take on this challenge and were totally thrilled with the results...

Alexa works primarily in fashion and beauty illustration, so we were excited to see how she would respond creatively to an exhibition such as Stranger Than Fiction - we certainly weren't disappointed with her beautiful piece! (right) We felt Alexa combined her freehand whimsical style perfectly with Fontcuberta's science fiction subject matter.

The exhibition sparked a sense of curiosity. It was not a subject matter, nor artist I was familiar with, so I approached the exhibition with a sense of caution. Staged in rooms of subject matter, each hoax presented a completely new idea on how to trick the viewer, some subtler than others. Starting with the bizarre taxidermy creatures, staged as if reality, was a good way to start the exhibition. The further into the exhibition, the more difficult it was to decipher the difference between fact and fiction.

Interesting and thought provoking the work itself highlighted issues sounding the reliability of the photographic image. As the artist states himself sometimes “people want to be tricked” and uses subject matter which perhaps we would want to be real, which makes it ever so more believable. As an artist and communicator I believe it is an interesting outlook on visual imageries power. The most important rule of communication is understanding your audience and what they desire.

Sam draws with watercolours and pastels. His illustrations have a wonderful childish playfulness to them, yet also contain a slightly darker side. We thought these elements would lend themselves perfectly to the themes presented at Stranger Than Fiction.

The exhibition for me was very powerful. The idea of making convincible 'lies' due to the influence of advertising is very inspiring for image makers. I can certainly relate to it due to being an 'on-purpose' liar myself. Telling false truth in such a sincere way to create a persona, an ultra ego, is amazing. Especially when Joan Fontcuberta made such impacting imagery that you can surround yourself in as if you are really there, walking through a fantasy that is a big figure of Fontcuberta's imagination. What becomes fiction, what becomes fact?

Thanks for the opportunity Gather.ly.

After featuring Kate on Gather.ly just last week, we thought this was a stellar opportunity for the zoologist-come-fashion-illustrator to interpret Fontcuberta's strange line of work.

I was aware of Joan Fontcuberta’s work so had some idea of what I was in for. I decided to go to the exhibition with a totally open mind and absorb as much information and inspiration as I could from what was presented to me.

The first section of the exhibition is his Fauna series. Having studied zoology myself, this was the series I was most interested in, but also most creeped out by. I went on a Monday afternoon when the museum was quiet and I was pretty much the only person in the exhibition at the time. This made the experience of looking at freakish taxidermy concoctions even more scary for me.

I almost completely freaked out at one point - when I turned a corner to be faced with a fox-like creature with a long tail where the head should be, with a large clawed hook on the end of it - I pretty much screamed and hid behind my hands. (It wasn't my finest moment and after having a little word with myself I was fine). The rest of the exhibition was less traumatic and more obviously playful.

The interview with Fontcuberta shown on video at the end of the exhibition really pulled it all together for me. His playful sense of humour and cynical take on our belief system really resonated with me. He said a couple of things that explained it all for me:

This pretty much described my own reaction to his work! And: “If you are not able to believe any longer, how do you know what to believe in the beginning?”

After the viewing I did a brain dump with words and doodles to try to work out how to interpret everything I’d seen. The range of subject matter is so diverse that I found myself going round and round in circles trying to find a visual interpretation of Stranger Than Fiction. The one thing that I kept coming back to was my (highly embarrassing in hindsight) freak out. So I used that and some of Joan’s own words to come up with my final piece.

It has turned out to be very Lichtenstein-esque but I think the humour behind Fontcuberta’s work and the emotional response it elicits, quite fit this style. I played around sketching dramatic frightened women first, then worked in Illustrator to produce the finished illustration. I would love to do a series of these given time as my mind is now full of dramatic reactions...

It's been such a pleasure to see the diverse results of our three artists from their mission to Interpret/Inspire. We'd like to thank them for being involved and also big thanks to The Science Museum for supporting this challenge and hooking Gather.ly up with tickets to the show.

Stranger Than Fiction is on until November 9th, so there's still plenty time to check it out if our artists have inspired and intrigued you. Make sure you let us know what you think, and don't forget to get in touch if you'd like to be involved in future Interpret/Inspire challenges.