Young Australian Charged for Supposedly Placing Googly Eyes on ‘Blue Blob’ Artwork
A young person from Australia has appeared in court after reportedly vandalizing a sizable blue sculpture of a legendary being by affixing googly eyes to it.
Amelia Vanderhorst, 19 years old, appeared remotely at the local court in South Australia on that day, facing with a single charge of damaging property.
In a statement at the moment of the September incident, the local council said that surveillance video captured a person placing fake eyes on the sculpture, which locals have nicknamed the “Blue Blob”.
The accused made no plea and informed the court she was ill, according to news outlets, with the magistrate advising her to find a lawyer before her upcoming hearing in the final month of the year.
A day after the reported event, the city leader stated that repairs to the popular public artwork would be expensive as the adhesive eyes were impossible to be detached without damaging the sculpture.
“This wilful damage to a valued community art is unacceptable and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin said in mid-September. “It is not innocent amusement, it is pricey - it is also disappointing to those members of our community who have embraced the Blue Blob.”
The mayor added the council would pursue the “substantial” repair costs from those responsible for the damage.
At the time the artwork was first proposed, it received varied responses from the area residents due to its price tag and appearance.
Priced at A$136,000 (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the sculpture represents a legendary giant animal, with the sculpture’s designers influenced by an prehistoric anteater-like marsupial discovered in local caves that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.
