Star In Your Favourite Famous Paintings With The VanGoYourself Challenge

People are putting on their best Mona Lisa smiles for the VanGoYourself challenge, an online arts initiative that invites you to pose in the style of famous artworks. Instead of just looking at paintings, the platform asks participants to really get inside them, recreating their best live versions of the tableaus and then uploading a photo of their creation onto the website’s VanGo’d gallery.

The great thing about this online creative space is that not only does it offer art lovers around the world a more interactive way to engage with art, it also allows museums to share their paintings with the world, offering institutions an easy way to upload images of their own collections for people to see and recreate for themselves.

The process, both for individuals wanting to join the fun and museums hoping to upload their work, is extremely straightforward. The website offers step-by-step instructions which are quick and friendly, leaving you nothing major to do except stage and photograph your masterpiece!

There are various levels of difficulty in terms of the paintings to be recreated, which include ‘Easy to Recreate’ and ‘Challenge a Master,’ as well as options based on the number of people available to pitch in, ranging from one to over four. You can even search by tags such as ‘English Art’ or ‘pets.’ The possibilities really are endless!

The project itself is managed by the independent UK arts charity Culture24, an organisation whose goal, according to their website, is to bring ‘arts and heritage organisations together to do amazing things they couldn’t do on their own.’

It seems that VanGoYourself is a really great way to get people involved in iconic art, promising the end result of a great Insta post to boot! Now go forth and be the art you want to see in the world.

About the author

India Irving

Social Media Editor

Born and raised in LA, India studied Drama at the University of Southern California before shifting her focus to the visual arts. After moving to London in 2013, she co-founded the iOS app ArtAttack which focused on connecting emerging artistic talent with galleries and collectors. Following that she worked at Albany Arts Communications, a boutique Art PR firm in Fitzrovia before joining Culture Trip. Aside from art and theatre, India's other passions include travel, food, books and dance.