Address:
Octopus Industries
69 Tsar Assen Str, Sofia
Open: Tues to Sat, 11am to 7pm

Lamphead is a secret spaceman. Indeed.

On a white background, there is a contoured silhouette of a two-legged thing, with a floor lamp's shade moulded to its head like an astronaut's helmet. What does it mean, considering that it is printed on a greeting card?

A variety of items conveying a prankish attitude can be found in this shop, one that still has no name, but it is known that Octopus Industries stands behind it.

Occupying a corner of a grubby intersection of the city centre, the shop stands out like a giant smiley. Inside, the customer enters a world where the creatures that inhabit it "attack" with spontaneous calls for attention. They are printed on t-shirts, magnets, handbags, greeting cards, badges and pillows, or stare back in a shape of plaster bears, or plastic spacemen, or a robot made out of a cardboard box placed over a bookshelf opposite the front door.

"Well, we want to have fun when we create things," Tatyana Nedyalkova, one of the owners and contributing artist to the stock, says. "It is art, but, at the same time, it is accessible as a perception, it does not require some intellectual strain to figure out the image on a conscious level." It is emotional and does not contain a specific message, she says.

Nedyalkova and British artist Sean Kavanagh are the creative power of Octopus Industries. The two opened the shop at the end of October 2008, and as she puts it, they stand 100 per cent behind it. "I wanted to be very, very happy with this initiative." And she ought to be, for the outcome is the birth of a unique urban outfitter, supplying good mood and optimism.

"It's been a long time / since I've seen you smile..." sings Zach Condon, lead singer of the indie band Beirut, which is being played over the computer. How bizarre. Right at that second, those lyrics seem relevant to the atmosphere of the place, but only to intensify the contrast. Take some of the characters Nedyalkova has created and then printed on t-shirts, handbags or pins. At first, they seem somewhat evil, like misshaped little bandits. But closer scrutiny yields another impression - the bad guys are actually pretty comical cutties, nothing but happy imps radiating pure childish joy. They encompass the Idiot Series.

Nedyalkova was born in 1980 in Sofia, Bulgaria, and studied art at various places in the UK. She says that she likes to play with space and, so far, has worked mostly in installation- and object-based projects. She admits, however, that one day it would be nice if she could do book illustrations, because this is her dream. Kavanagh has stated once that he "is influenced by everything and is trying to remember something". Other than that, no further details about him are available, except his pseudonym, which will not be disclosed in this article.

In addition to producing t-shirts printed with their works, Octopus Industries features products by British labels Concrete Hermit and Dephect, among others.

The shop also has the ambition to showcase contemporary artists, in addition to the owners' work. Until January 31 2009, the walls will be adorned with the prints of Varna-based artist Kaloyan "Kokimoto" Iliev, who makes collages and prints. They are a provocation in itself, a reaction of the artist to something he found to be ugly in our reality. Ugly and sinister.

"The serenity that has come upon me, the high on sedatives silence only masks the noise, the fear and despair that fill in the space after the meaning is lost. I suffer from the maladies of our time..." Iliev's works are influenced by pop-art, animation and street art; more information can be found at kaloyan-iliev-kokimoto.blogspot.com.

While explaining Iliev's collages, Nedyalkova mentions that if she had the time, she would also like to have her own exhibition at the shop. Meanwhile, she points out a good number of small sculptures of white (polar?) bears, positioned at the window. Nedyalkova made 300 of them for an installation called So Long, shown in London some time ago. She separated them into two big groups and made them bid farewell to one another over a demarcation line. She looks at the bears with a tinge of motherly love. "It was really a sad story," Nedyalkova says, and goes behind the counter to change the music.