Australian Teen Charged for Supposedly Placing Googly Eyes on ‘Cast in Blue’ Artwork
A young person from the Land Down Under has faced legal proceedings after allegedly defacing a sizable blue sculpture of a mythical creature by affixing googly eyes to it.
Amelia Vanderhorst, 19 years old, participated via phone at Mount Gambier Magistrates Court in the state of South Australia on that day, facing with one count of property damage.
Officials commented at the moment of the recent event, the local council explained that surveillance video showed a individual putting fake eyes on the sculpture, which residents have nicknamed the “Blue Blob”.
Ms Vanderhorst made no plea and told the judge she was unwell, as reported by media sources, with the judge advising her to secure a lawyer before her next court date in December.
The following day the reported event, the local mayor said that repairs to the much-loved community sculpture would be expensive as the stickers were impossible to be detached without harming the sculpture.
“This wilful damage to a valued public artwork is inappropriate and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin remarked in September. “It is not harmless fun, it is pricey - it is also disappointing to those people of our community who have embraced Cast in Blue.”
She said the local government would pursue the “significant” restoration expenses from those responsible for the damage.
At the time the artwork was first proposed, it drew mixed reactions from the local community due to its cost and appearance.
Priced at A$136,000 (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the sculpture depicts a mythical megafauna, with the sculpture’s designers influenced by an ancient anteater-like marsupial found in local caves that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.
