{"id":531335,"date":"2026-04-15T01:42:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T01:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/531335\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T01:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T01:42:12","slug":"quirky-sculpture-stolen-from-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/531335\/","title":{"rendered":"quirky sculpture stolen from garden"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Police in the UK are on the trail of a Superlambanana after it was stolen from a garden.<\/p>\n<p>The sculpture, a hybrid of a sheep and a banana which has become a symbol of Liverpool, was taken from the front garden of a home in Runcorn, a spokeswoman for Cheshire Constabulary said.<\/p>\n<p>Thieves made off with the 76cm ornament, which is about 120cm long and painted with brightly coloured stripes and decorations, at about 11pm on 29 March, according to police.<\/p>\n<p>The spokeswoman said: &#8220;The ornament has sentimental value to the family and they are keen for its return.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Superlambanana was designed in 1998 by Japanese artist Taro Chiezo as part of the Artranspennine festival.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"a sculpture of a lamb crossed with a banana and brightly coloured\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/002437d0-614.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The design is said to have been a comment on the potential dangers of genetic engineering, as well as representing some of the cargo which came through the city&#8217;s port.<\/p>\n<p>When Liverpool was made European Capital of Culture 2008 more than 100 of the sculptures were decorated by artists, groups and individuals and were displayed as part of a Go Superlambananas trail across the city.<\/p>\n<p>Seventy of them were later auctioned off, with some of the items selling for more than #20,000.<\/p>\n<p>A number of Superlambananas can still be seen across the city, including a 5.18m sculpture on Tithebarn Street which was painted in the colours of the Ukraine flag when the Eurovision Song Contest was held in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police in the UK are on the trail of a Superlambanana after it was stolen from a garden.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-531335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}