Australian Teen Charged for Supposedly Attaching Googly Eyes on ‘Cast in Blue’ Sculpture
A young person from the Land Down Under has faced legal proceedings after allegedly vandalizing a sizable art piece of a mythical creature by affixing plastic eyes to it.
The 19-year-old, aged 19, appeared remotely at the local court in South Australia on that day, charged with a single charge of property damage.
Officials commented at the moment of the September incident, the local council said that CCTV footage captured a person putting fake eyes on the sculpture, which residents have dubbed the “Blue Blob”.
Ms Vanderhorst did not enter a plea and told the court she was ill, as reported by news outlets, with the judge advising her to secure a legal representative before her next court date in December.
A day after the alleged incident, the local mayor stated that repairs to the much-loved community sculpture would be expensive as the adhesive eyes could not be removed without damaging the sculpture.
“This wilful damage to a cherished community art is inappropriate and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin remarked in September. “It is not harmless fun, it is costly - it is also frustrating to those people of our community who have embraced Cast in Blue.”
She added the council would pursue the “substantial” restoration expenses from those accountable for the vandalism.
At the time the sculpture was first proposed, it drew mixed reactions from the local community due to its cost and design.
Costing 136,000 Australian dollars (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the artwork represents a legendary giant animal, with the sculpture’s designers influenced by an prehistoric marsupial ant-eater found in nearby caverns that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.
