Australian Teen Faces Charges for Allegedly Attaching Sticker Eyes on ‘Cast in Blue’ Artwork
A young person from the Land Down Under has appeared in court after reportedly vandalizing a large art piece of a mythical creature by applying plastic eyes to it.
Amelia Vanderhorst, 19 years old, appeared remotely at the local court in the state of South Australia on that day, facing with one count of property damage.
In a statement at the time of the September incident, the municipal authorities said that surveillance video showed a individual putting artificial eyes on the sculpture, which residents have dubbed the “Cast in Blue”.
Ms Vanderhorst made no plea and informed the court she was unwell, according to 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 stated that repairs to the much-loved public artwork would be costly as the adhesive eyes could not be detached without damaging the art piece.
“This intentional vandalism to a cherished community art is inappropriate and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin remarked in mid-September. “It is not harmless fun, it is costly - it is also disappointing to those people of our society who have embraced Cast in Blue.”
She said the local government would seek the “significant” repair costs from those accountable for the vandalism.
When the sculpture was first proposed, it received mixed reactions from the local community due to its price tag and design.
Priced at A$136,000 (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the artwork depicts a legendary giant animal, with the sculpture’s designers inspired by an ancient anteater-like marsupial discovered in local caves that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.
