Facebook newsfeeds are often full of exotic vacation photos that make us envious of our friend's lives. But one artist put a new meaning to fake Facebook representations by Photoshopping a phony vacation.

Dutch artist Zilla van den Born fibbed she was vacationing in Southeast Asia as part of a university project that shows how "we create an ideal world online which reality can no longer meet."

Van den Born fooled her Facebook friends after exposing that her exotic getaway was actually a staycation. Even her family was shocked to find that their Skype sessions with their daughter were actually staged by van de Born redecorating her house in Amsterdam to look like a hotel room.

The 25-year-old artist claimed that she was spending five weeks in Southeast Asia after graduation, even waving goodbye to her family and friends at the airport. She immediately took a train back home and stayed in solitude, spending the time editing her photos with Photoshop.

"I did this to show people that we filter and manipulate what we show on social media," van den Born says.

The artist edited herself into situations that tourists normally participate in and shared them on her Facebook. The Photoshopped images of the fake vacation included van den Born eating Thai food, snorkeling, traveling in tuk-tuks and exploring Buddhist temples.

The photo of her next to a Buddhist monk in the temple was actually taken from a temple in her town. She took the snorkeling photo from her apartment complex's pool, editing in tropical fish.

"My goal was to prove how common and easy it is for people to distort reality. Everyone knows that pictures of models are manipulated, but we often overlook the fact that we manipulate reality also in our own lives," she says.

The short clips below show how the artist pulled the project off. 

Sjezus zeg, Zilla - Photoshop from Zilla van den Born on Vimeo.

Sjezus zeg, Zilla - Snorkelen from Zilla van den Born on Vimeo.

Sjezus zeg, Zilla - Tempel from Zilla van den Born on Vimeo.