【Arnold Reyes Archives】

Post-socialist cities like Sofia in Bulgaria,Arnold Reyes Archives aren't known for their architectural diversity. They tend to be a bit monotonous. And rusty. Very rusty.

SEE ALSO: This city has no monuments to women so an artist did a colourful shake-up

But when you add googly eyes (aka eyebombing) to cities rumbling ruins gain a certain charm.

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Photographer Vanyu Krastev, 42, has been eyebombing Sofia over the past two years, breathing life in the most unexpected places.

His project got a flurry of attention in Bulgaria after an article in Bored Panda and now there are much more eyeballs on it (geddit?).

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Krastev is hoping that it will develop into a grassroots movement, where people geolocate themselves moving around the city and follow the lead of other eyebombers.

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Like many capital cities in Europe, parking is a nightmare In Sofia. There are cars everywhere. Especially sidewalks. So the city is littered with a variety of stony sculptures that function as barriers. What better place to put some googly eyes?

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And that's the point. Finding beauty in anything, both animate and inanimate, is a matter of perspective.

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Krastev says he can't unsee that beauty anymore. The plastic googly eyes, just like the ones on most Sesame Streetcharacters, are a filter through which he can mould the city and make it come to life.

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"I bought a few of these plastic eyes and decided to try it in Sofia. I noticed no one had done it before (in Bulgaria) and I went from there," Krastev said.

"The more eyes I stuck on things, the better I became. I got a sort of flair for it. Nowadays, I don't even need to go on a specific 'eybombing hunt' around Sofia. The little creatures just kind of pop out all around me."

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Krastev was inspired by the two Danish masters of the street art initiative, who describe it as an "effort to define and refine a largely neglected and overlooked" part of everyday life – the urban aesthetic.

And their methodology is simple – create weirdly gleeful creatures from inanimate objects, which in turn bring equally wide smiles to people passing by.

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Sofia is a particularly good canvas for this sort of installation because the best eyebombing works with things that are "broken, ruptured, punctured, tangled, crumbling, or twisted," Krastev says. "You are, in a way, humanizing them."

These's an abundance in the city and once you look at them through the googly eyes filter, it's kind of an inspiration.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Proof that beauty and life is everywhere.

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