Relics: A New World Rises at Melbourne Museum

Fri 1st September, 2023 – Sun 28th January, 2024
9:00am – 5:00pm
Melbourne Museum
11 Nicholson Street, Carlton
Price: $14–$27.50
Step into miniature Lego worlds – created by two Lego Masters winners – set inside old and forgotten objects including a grandfather clock, vintage refrigerator, jukebox and a row of arcade machines. Plus, get creative with a build-you-own station.

Jackson Harvey and Alex Towler’s Lego builds go far beyond the instructions of your average boxed set. Since winning season two of Channel 9’s Lego Masters in 2020, the Perth-based duo has been bringing their intricate designs to families, art lovers and Lego fans across the country. Now, it’s Melbourne’s turn.

The immersive mixed-media exhibition features more than a dozen miniature dystopian civilizations housed inside vintage artefacts and everyday junk – each with its own story to tell. Inside an old refrigerator, find a cryogenics facility protecting people from an overheated climate. A grandfather clock hosts inventors building a time machine. Other scenes are set inside a piano, jukebox, elevator and a row of retro arcade machines, among more.

The exhibition encourages visitors to think deeper about the way the world works and challenge their ideas around sustainability and connection. Plus, there’ll be a build-your-own table for those who want to get creative and click together some blocks.

"Today, humans are producing and consuming at an unprecedented rate, and many of the products that are manufactured today will outlive their creators by centuries," Harvey says. "Everything we manufacture today will eventually impact our environment in some way, including Lego."

"The choice of the plastic brick as a medium to discuss topics of sustainability is an intentional one, aimed at drawing attention to the way our society uses, recycles and discards our material world,’ Towler sats. "The Lego minifigures make creative and sometimes absurd interpretations of each object, challenging the audience to consider what they throw away, and where it ends up."

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