Young Australian Faces Charges for Supposedly Placing Googly Eyes on ‘Cast in Blue’ Artwork
A teenager from the Land Down Under has faced legal proceedings after reportedly defacing a large blue sculpture of a mythical creature by affixing googly eyes to it.
Amelia Vanderhorst, 19 years old, appeared remotely at the local court in South Australia on Tuesday, facing with a single charge of property damage.
Officials commented at the moment of the September incident, the local council said that surveillance video showed a person putting fake eyes on the artwork, which residents have dubbed the “Cast in Blue”.
Ms Vanderhorst did not enter a plea and told the court she was ill, as reported by news outlets, with the magistrate advising her to find a lawyer before her next court date in the final month of the year.
A day after the reported event, the city leader said that repairs to the popular community sculpture would be expensive as the adhesive eyes could not be removed without harming the sculpture.
“This wilful damage to a cherished community art is unacceptable and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin said in mid-September. “It is not harmless fun, it is pricey - it is also frustrating to those members of our community who have welcomed Cast in Blue.”
She said the local government would pursue the “significant” restoration expenses from those responsible for the damage.
At the time the sculpture was initially suggested, it drew mixed reactions from the local community due to its cost and appearance.
Costing A$136,000 (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the sculpture depicts a mythical megafauna, with the sculpture’s designers inspired by an prehistoric marsupial ant-eater found in nearby caverns that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.
