Young Australian Faces Charges for Supposedly Attaching Googly Eyes on ‘Cast in Blue’ Artwork
A young person from Australia has appeared in court after reportedly defacing a sizable blue sculpture of a legendary being by affixing googly eyes to it.
Amelia Vanderhorst, aged 19, participated via phone at the local court in South Australia on Tuesday, facing with a single charge of property damage.
Officials commented at the moment of the recent event, the municipal authorities said that CCTV footage showed a individual placing fake eyes on the sculpture, which residents have dubbed the “Blue Blob”.
Ms Vanderhorst did not enter a plea and informed the judge she was unwell, according to media sources, with the magistrate advising her to find a legal representative 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 adhesive eyes were impossible to be detached without harming the sculpture.
“This wilful damage to a cherished public artwork is inappropriate and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin said in mid-September. “It is not innocent amusement, it is costly - it is also frustrating to those members of our society who have embraced the Blue Blob.”
The mayor added the council would seek the “substantial” repair costs from those responsible for the vandalism.
When the artwork was first proposed, it received varied responses from the local community due to its price tag and design.
Priced at A$136,000 ($89,000; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the sculpture represents a mythical megafauna, with the sculpture’s designers inspired by an prehistoric anteater-like marsupial discovered in nearby caverns that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.
