🔗 Share this article

A young person from the Land Down Under has faced legal proceedings after reportedly vandalizing a sizable blue sculpture of a mythical creature by applying plastic eyes to it.

The 19-year-old, aged 19, appeared remotely at Mount Gambier Magistrates Court in South Australia on that day, facing with a single charge of damaging property.

In a statement at the time of the recent event, the local council explained that surveillance video showed a person putting artificial eyes on the artwork, which residents have nicknamed the “Blue Blob”.

The accused did not enter a plea and informed the judge she was unwell, according to news outlets, with the magistrate advising her to find a lawyer before her next court date in the final month of the year.

The following day the reported event, the city leader said that repairs to the much-loved public artwork would be expensive as the adhesive eyes were impossible to be removed without harming the sculpture.

“This intentional vandalism to a valued public artwork is inappropriate and disrespectful,” City of Mount Gambier mayor said in mid-September. “It is not harmless fun, it is costly - it is also disappointing to those members of our society who have welcomed the Blue Blob.”

She added the local government would pursue the “substantial” repair costs from those accountable for the vandalism.

At the time the artwork was first proposed, it drew varied responses from the local community due to its cost and appearance.

Costing 136,000 Australian dollars (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the sculpture represents a mythical megafauna, with the creators influenced by an prehistoric anteater-like marsupial discovered in nearby caverns that was “massive, lumbering and fascinating”.