Australian Teen Faces Charges for Supposedly Attaching Googly Eyes on ‘Cast in Blue’ Artwork
A young person from the Land Down Under has faced legal proceedings after allegedly defacing a large blue sculpture of a mythical creature by applying plastic eyes to it.
Amelia Vanderhorst, aged 19, participated via phone at the local court in the state of South Australia on Tuesday, facing with one count of property damage.
In a statement at the time of the recent event, the local council said that surveillance video captured a individual putting fake eyes on the artwork, which residents have nicknamed the “Blue Blob”.
Ms Vanderhorst did not enter a plea and informed the court she was ill, as reported by media sources, with the magistrate advising her to secure a lawyer before her next court date in the final month of the year.
The following day the alleged incident, the city leader said that repairs to the popular public artwork would be costly as the stickers could not be detached without damaging the art piece.
“This intentional vandalism to a valued public artwork is unacceptable and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin remarked in mid-September. “It is not harmless fun, it is costly - it is also disappointing to those members of our society who have welcomed the Blue Blob.”
The mayor said the local government would pursue the “significant” repair costs from those responsible for the damage.
At the time the sculpture was first proposed, it received mixed reactions from the local community due to its cost and design.
Priced at A$136,000 ($89,000; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the artwork depicts a mythical megafauna, with the creators influenced by an prehistoric anteater-like marsupial discovered in nearby caverns that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.