Young Australian Charged for Supposedly Placing Sticker Eyes on ‘Cast in Blue’ Sculpture
A young person from Australia has faced legal proceedings after allegedly defacing a sizable blue sculpture of a mythical creature by applying plastic eyes to it.
Amelia Vanderhorst, 19 years old, participated remotely 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 local council said that CCTV footage showed a person putting artificial eyes on the artwork, which residents have dubbed the “Cast in Blue”.
Ms Vanderhorst did not enter a plea and informed the court she was unwell, according to news outlets, with the judge advising her to find a lawyer before her next court date in December.
A day after the reported event, the city leader said that restoration to the much-loved public artwork would be expensive as the stickers were impossible to be detached without harming the art piece.
“This intentional vandalism to a cherished public artwork is unacceptable and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin said in September. “It is not harmless fun, it is costly - it is also frustrating to those people of our society who have welcomed Cast in Blue.”
The mayor added the local government would pursue the “substantial” restoration expenses from those accountable for the damage.
When the sculpture was first proposed, it drew varied responses from the area residents due to its price tag and appearance.
Priced at A$136,000 ($89,000; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the artwork represents a mythical megafauna, with the sculpture’s designers influenced by an ancient marsupial ant-eater found in nearby caverns that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.
