{"id":897238,"date":"2026-09-19T02:36:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T02:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/897238\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T02:36:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T02:36:22","slug":"lego-based-exhibition-relics-a-new-world-rises-opens-at-canberra-museum-and-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/897238\/","title":{"rendered":"Lego-based exhibition RELICS: A New World Rises opens at Canberra Museum and Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tell us about your experience. <\/p>\n

It’s the year 2130, humans have left Earth and Lego minifigures have moved into the belongings we’ve left behind.<\/p>\n

At least that’s how friends Jackson Harvey and Alex Towler imagined the future, while they spent years creating a whimsical, wonder-filled world for their exhibition RELICS: A New World Rises.<\/p>\n

“The characters of Relics live in a world that’s set in the not-too-distant future \u2026 where humans have left the planet for reasons that are left vague. But they have built new communities inside all the old objects and junk that we’ve left behind,” Harvey explains.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

A bustling Lego society housed inside a Volkswagen beetle boot. (ABC News: Simon Beardsell)<\/p>\n

Across more than 15 large-scale installations at the Canberra Museum and Gallery, tiny communities have moved into the wreckage humanity left behind.<\/p>\n

A fridge has become a cryogenic wellness resort, a grandfather clock has been reverse-engineered by a band of inventors into a time machine, a claw machine has become a futuristic space port.<\/p>\n

“Lego has become [the] majority of our lives. It’s lots of fun though \u2014 it changes the way we’ve looked at the world,” Towler says.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Lego people mingle at a resort, in a world abandoned by humans. (ABC News: Simon Beardsell)<\/p>\n

“We just like looking at cool stuff and figuring out what little plastic people will do with them,” he says.<\/p>\n

Vintage classics house intricate worlds<\/p>\n

The pair created this new civilisation from old stuff.<\/p>\n

“This exhibition was built on a majority of salvaged parts. It’s mostly second-hand Lego,” Towler says.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The pair blended relics with Lego to invoke nostalgia for viewers. (ABC News: Simon Beardsell)<\/p>\n

Some of the objects were harder to find than others, the pair say. And all the detail that surrounds the larger objects help to build the story and the world.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got a lot of really unique objects in the exhibition \u2014 some of them are really hard to find,” Harvey says.<\/p>\n

“My personal favourite is the 76-year-old jukebox, the antique Wurlitzer from the 40s.”Immersive art<\/p>\n

Harvey and Towler say there are many stories woven into the millions of small pieces and 2,500 minifigures making up the exhibition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Harvey and Towler sourced an old jukebox for one installation. (ABC News: Simon Beardsell)<\/p>\n

“Lego is only a small part of this exhibition,” Towler says.<\/p>\n

“There’s a lot to see. There’s the stories, there’s the nostalgia of the objects, there’s the scavenger hunt to help explore the detail. There’s something for everybody in this exhibition.”<\/p>\n

They say the longer you look at it, the more you’ll uncover.<\/p>\n

“There’s lots of little Easter eggs and hidden stories that you can only find if you look around a corner and down a hallway or behind a shelf,” Harvey says.<\/p>\n

They’ve built it. Now you can come<\/p>\n

“This exhibition is at its core about not following instructions, doing something differently,” Towler says.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Harvey and Towler want to encourage people to think outside ‘normal’ ways of doing things. (ABC News: Lish Fejer)<\/p>\n

“Lego pieces aren’t meant to fit in the front of a VW Beetle, but if you have a V-Dub and you have Lego and you squish them together, you can figure it out. That’s the message.”<\/p>\n

The exhibition is designed to appeal equally to serious enthusiasts, families and anyone who’s never clicked a little plastic brick in their life.<\/p>\n

RELICS: A New World Rises is a ticketed exhibition on at the Canberra Museum and Gallery until January 31, 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tell us about your experience. It’s the year 2130, humans have left Earth and Lego minifigures have moved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":897239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2666,465941,64,63,2667,465942,134,236739,32620,465940,465939,2668,465943],"class_list":["post-897238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-act","tag-alex-towler","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-canberra","tag-canberra-museum-gallery","tag-entertainment","tag-jackson-harvey","tag-lego","tag-lego-art","tag-lego-minifigs","tag-local-stories","tag-relics-a-new-world-rises"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}