Young Australian Faces Charges for Allegedly Attaching Sticker Eyes on ‘Cast in Blue’ Artwork
A young person from Australia has appeared in court after allegedly defacing a large blue sculpture of a legendary being by applying googly eyes to it.
Amelia Vanderhorst, 19 years old, participated via phone at the local court in the state of South Australia on Tuesday, facing with a single charge of damaging property.
Officials commented at the moment of the recent event, the municipal authorities said that surveillance video showed a individual placing fake eyes on the artwork, which locals have nicknamed the “Blue Blob”.
Ms Vanderhorst made no plea and told the judge she was unwell, as reported by media sources, with the magistrate advising her to find a legal representative before her upcoming hearing in the final month of the year.
A day after the reported event, the local mayor stated that restoration to the much-loved community sculpture would be expensive as the adhesive eyes could not be removed without harming the sculpture.
“This wilful damage to a valued community art is unacceptable and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin remarked in mid-September. “It is not harmless fun, it is pricey - it is also disappointing to those people of our society who have welcomed the Blue Blob.”
She said the council would pursue the “substantial” restoration expenses from those accountable for the vandalism.
When the sculpture was first proposed, it received varied responses from the area residents due to its cost and design.
Costing 136,000 Australian dollars (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 nearby caverns that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.
