Australian Teen Charged for Supposedly Attaching Sticker Eyes on ‘Blue Blob’ Sculpture
A teenager from Australia has appeared in court after allegedly defacing a large art piece of a legendary being by affixing plastic eyes to it.
Amelia Vanderhorst, 19 years old, appeared via phone at the local court in the state of South Australia on that day, charged with a single charge of damaging property.
In a statement at the time of the September incident, the local council said that CCTV footage captured a person placing artificial eyes on the sculpture, which locals have dubbed the “Cast in Blue”.
Ms Vanderhorst made no plea and informed the judge she was ill, as reported by news outlets, with the magistrate advising her to secure a legal representative before her upcoming hearing in the final month of the year.
A day after the alleged incident, the local mayor said that restoration to the much-loved community sculpture would be costly as the stickers could not be detached without damaging the sculpture.
“This intentional vandalism to a valued community art is unacceptable and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin said in mid-September. “It is not harmless fun, it is costly - it is also frustrating to those people of our society who have embraced the Blue Blob.”
The mayor added the local government would pursue the “significant” repair costs from those accountable for the damage.
At the time the artwork was first proposed, it received varied responses from the area residents due to its cost and design.
Priced at A$136,000 (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; £68,000), the artwork depicts a mythical megafauna, with the creators influenced by an ancient anteater-like marsupial found in nearby caverns that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.
