Australian Teen Faces Charges for Supposedly Attaching Googly Eyes on ‘Cast in Blue’ Artwork
A teenager from Australia has faced legal proceedings after reportedly 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 Tuesday, charged with one count of property damage.
In a statement at the moment of the September incident, the municipal authorities said that surveillance video showed a individual placing artificial eyes on the sculpture, which residents have dubbed the “Blue Blob”.
Ms Vanderhorst made no plea and informed the court she was ill, as reported by news outlets, with the judge advising her to find a legal representative before her next court date in the final month of the year.
The following day the reported event, the local mayor said that repairs to the popular community sculpture would be costly as the adhesive eyes could not be removed without harming the sculpture.
“This wilful damage to a cherished public artwork is inappropriate and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin remarked in September. “It is not innocent amusement, it is costly - it is also disappointing to those members of our society who have welcomed the Blue Blob.”
The mayor added the local government would pursue the “substantial” repair costs from those responsible for the damage.
At the time the sculpture was first proposed, it drew mixed reactions from the area residents due to its cost and appearance.
Costing 136,000 Australian dollars (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the artwork depicts a mythical megafauna, with the sculpture’s designers influenced by an prehistoric anteater-like marsupial found in nearby caverns that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.
