Latest news with #Relics
Sydney Morning Herald
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Australian Museum exhibition imagines a world where humans are replaced by Lego mini-figures
Once upon a child's playground, Lego was those annoying plastic bricks that would endlessly entertain preschoolers. Today, it is a recognised artistic medium, fascinating for adults and children alike, seeding a TV show and a new Australian Museum exhibition. Lego builders Alex Towler and Jackson Harvey, 2020 Lego Master champions who are bringing their Lego Relics exhibition to the Australian Museum. Credit: Steven Siewert Relics, A New World Rises – opening in August – imagines a future world where humans have pushed the environment one step too far and it has been repopulated by some 2000 mini-figures. Best friends Alex Towler and Jackson Harvey, winners of the first Lego Masters television series, have built 15 miniature civilisations within forgotten and reclaimed objects.
Sydney Morning Herald
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney ‘blocks-buster' showing a world where humans are replaced by Lego
Once upon a child's playground, Lego was those annoying plastic bricks that would endlessly entertain preschoolers. Today, it is a recognised artistic medium, fascinating for adults and children alike, seeding a TV show and a new Australian Museum exhibition. Relics, A New World Rises – opening in August – imagines a future world where humans have pushed the environment one step too far and it has been repopulated by some 2000 mini-figures. Best friends Alex Towler and Jackson Harvey, winners of the first Lego Masters television series, have built 15 miniature civilisations within forgotten and reclaimed objects. A version of Manhattan's 88th Street has been installed inside a hollowed-out piano, and a 1950s-inspired Studz Diner comes to life inside a 75-year-old jukebox. 'Lego has changed so much since we grew up with it. If you remember those classic red, blue, yellow bricks, now there's so many colours and parts,' Harvey says. 'It's just a really fascinating creative medium that you can use for just about anything.' The Australian Museum's chief executive and director Kim McKay announced Relics as its winter 'blocks-buster' on Tuesday, a follow-up to Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru. Towler and Harvey conceived of the exhibition in 2020. It took them two years to build in their workshop in Perth and they have since toured their Lego realms to the South Australia and Melbourne museums and New Zealand, adding as they go.
The Age
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
The Sydney ‘blocks-buster' showing a world where humans are replaced by Lego
Once upon a child's playground, Lego was those annoying plastic bricks that would endlessly entertain preschoolers. Today, it is a recognised artistic medium, fascinating for adults and children alike, seeding a TV show and a new Australian Museum exhibition. Relics, A New World Rises – opening in August – imagines a future world where humans have pushed the environment one step too far and it has been repopulated by some 2000 mini-figures. Best friends Alex Towler and Jackson Harvey, winners of the first Lego Masters television series, have built 15 miniature civilisations within forgotten and reclaimed objects. A version of Manhattan's 88th Street has been installed inside a hollowed-out piano, and a 1950s-inspired Studz Diner comes to life inside a 75-year-old jukebox. 'Lego has changed so much since we grew up with it. If you remember those classic red, blue, yellow bricks, now there's so many colours and parts,' Harvey says. 'It's just a really fascinating creative medium that you can use for just about anything.' The Australian Museum's chief executive and director Kim McKay announced Relics as its winter 'blocks-buster' on Tuesday, a follow-up to Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru. Towler and Harvey conceived of the exhibition in 2020. It took them two years to build in their workshop in Perth and they have since toured their Lego realms to the South Australia and Melbourne museums and New Zealand, adding as they go.
Otago Daily Times
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Last look at a new world as exhibit closes
Amani Kerekere-Shaw, 12, and his mum Savannah Kerekere, both of Dunedin, check out the Relics: A New World Rises exhibit on its final day at Tūhura Otago Museum yesterday. PHOTO: STEPHEN JAQUIERY Lego-lovers got their last look at the mini inhabitants of a futuristic, post-human world in Dunedin at the weekend. Since it opened in December last year almost 26,000 people visited Relics: A New World Rises at Tūhura Otago Museum. The exhibition closed yesterday. Front of house operations officer Christine Wierda said people who expected to see creations from standard Lego box-sets were often taken aback. "[They] always walk out sort of stunned at the fact of how creative [the creators have] been and how different it is from anything else they've ever seen," she said. "I think a lot of adults come out surprised that they've enjoyed it too." People from across the South Island had visited the exhibit, including some who had visited Relics while it was on show in Auckland. In humanity's remnants, little Lego civilisations had cropped-up — a grandfather clock turned into a time machine or a retro arcade converted into a futuristic spaceport. A wall of retro televisions transformed into mini filming studios with some displaying stop-motion films of the Lego figures, was a personal favourite, Ms Wierda said. The exhibition was created by Australian Lego masters television show winners Jackson Harvey and Alex Towler. Everything in the exhibition was second-hand, including the bricks. "Some of the props even have backstory of being in some friends of the creators' grandparents' cupboards," Ms Wierda said. Savannah Kerekere and her son Amani Kerekere-Shaw, both of Dunedin, spent the last day of the school holidays checking out the exhibition yesterday. While there was broad appeal for children and Lego fans, the humorous blurbs which accompanied each display were a "really cool touch" for the adults, she said. Museum marketing manager Charlie Buchan said there had been almost 26,000 people through the exhibit since it opened — a great number for a paid exhibit, he said. "It had been hugely popular and we have had visitors come especially for the exhibit from all over the South Island. "It's been great to be able to offer a high-quality exhibition for our community."
