These googly eyes are bringing broken streets objects to life

A face tempered like steel. Image: Eyebombing bulgaria

Post-socialist cities like Sofia in Bulgaria, 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 (akaeyebombing) to cities rumbling ruins gain a certain charm.

OOO-ways look on the bright side of life. Image: Eyebombing BUlgaria

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 inBored Panda and now there are much more eyeballs on it (geddit?).

Waka waka waka waka. Image: eyebombing bulgaria

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.

A plastic smile. Image: EYEBalling Bulgaria

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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'You should see the other guy.' Image: EYebombing Bulgaria

And that's the point. Finding beauty in anything, both animate and inanimate, is a matter of perspective. Krastev says he can't unsee that beauty anymore. The plastic googly eyes, just like the ones on mostSesame Street characters, are a filter through which he can mould the city and make it come to life.

An urban Rorschach test. Image: EYEBOMBING BULGARIA

'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.'

'I may be rusty, but I'm still beautiful.' Image: eyebombing bulgaria

Krastev was inspired by thetwo 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.

'Don't look down on me.' Image: EYEBOMBING BULGARIA

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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.

'Cookie, cookie, cookie, cookie!' Image: EYEBOMBING BULGARIA

A real mouthful. Image: eyebombing bulgaria

Proof that beauty and life is everywhere.

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