LEGO exhibition by Jackson Harvey and Alex Towler melds art, science and old-fashioned fun

The year is 2530. Humans have long since abandoned Earth, forced to seek a new planet after centuries of mistreating their home. All around lay the artefacts of their lost civilisation; rusting cars, broken down appliances, decaying electronics. But from the wreckage, new life: communities of LEGO minifigures, perfectly adapted to their new homes — polar explorers in an old fridge, a scavenger civilisation inside a rubbish bin, an advanced cyberpunk metropolis inside hollowed-out computer hard drives. In the spaces between, explorers from each community, venturing out beyond their borders, encounter each other for the first time. The post-apocalyptic scenario is the concept behind RELICS: Bricks of the New World, a new exhibition by Jackson Harvey and Alex Towler, winners of the second season of LEGO Masters, who were commissioned by cultural non-profit FORM to create the immersive experience as a prelude to Scribblers Festival. Harvey, a visual and tattoo artist, and Towler, an environmental engineer, have been friends since they met at private boys school, Hale. They were opposites in many ways — Harvey’s paint-splattered shirt was always untucked, which Towler jokes was a source of some stress for him, the kid vigilant about following the rules — but something clicked and they have been close since. Both were into LEGO but moved away from it after high school as other interests took over — it’s a common period in the lives of adult enthusiasts, light-heartedly referred to as ‘the dark ages’. But when Towler saw the first season of LEGO Masters, there was only one person he thought of. “I knew that combination of the artistic base, the creative, wacky mind and our clear communication would really work in that context,” he says. “As an engineer, I have more of those technical skills and the combination of art and the sciences makes a great team.” For RELICS, freed from the constraints of reality television, the duo let their imaginations run wild. Such is the connection of their hive mind, they don’t remember exactly who came up with the concept of the ‘minifigs’ inheriting the Earth but both are “always drawn to the more gritty side of themes and narratives,” Towler says. “I get a kick of taking a kid’s toy and putting it in more of a grim space — in a fun way. When we started thinking about building inside of objects, the image of rundown cars and fridges appealed to us and it made for an exciting theme that we could expand on. “I always find with Jackson when we are spitballing, as soon as we hit something that we both like, the ideas flow very quickly and when we came up with this, we just got that feeling that we were onto the right thing.” It was often a serious business — the pair have long, involved discussions about the highly intricate and detailed builds and often work until midnight — but there is nowhere else they would rather be. “We have a real sense of ownership over what we are making here, which is way more exciting and way more fun,” he says. “The other day we were doing something in the dirt there under the car and I had this moment of realisation that we were two 30-year-old dudes playing with toys in the sandbox. It was a strange moment.” As it turns out, coming up with the idea was the easy part. It took the pair months to source the right objects to house their small worlds: the perfect busted up fridge, broken down arcade machine and semi-rotted piano, not to mention buying and sorting 250kg of LEGO from BrickLink, the hobbyist’s second-hand marketplace, some of it quite specific (a mummy minifig for an Egyptian scene, for example). The centrepiece is a 1969 VW Beetle at just the right stage of decay, which they tracked down in Dunsborough after a lengthy online search. They hired a car trailer and set off. “It was rusting away in someone’s yard, all overgrown in this boggy part of the garden,” Harvey remembers. “We put it on this winch and because the tyres were shot, we had to pull it out of this bog just the two of us. It was challenging but then it was also very rewarding to get it in here and see it in situ because it is perfect.” Harvey has a particular soft spot for the neon cyberpunk city, built using thousands of fluorescent bricks they discovered glow vividly under UV light. “It is in a dark room, a bit of a hidden thing that won’t be immediately apparent at the exhibition but when you go in there, it will be one of the bigger installations,” he says. “It’s got a super futuristic vibe with the black lights and the effect is really cool.” The pair are keen to keep pushing the boundaries with LEGO — the floodgates are open and the ideas are flowing thick and fast. Both admit to going home from working at the installation until midnight, only to lie awake thinking about it until morning. “We are excited to take LEGO out of its traditional space and bring it into this more artistic, engineering area, while retaining that element of play, which is super important and has always been at the heart of why it has such a wide appeal,” Towler says. “We really feel this is more than a LEGO display; it is integrating other elements of artistic practice to create something entirely new.” RELICS: Bricks of the New World opens at The Goods Shed in Claremont next Friday and runs until May 30, scribblers.com.au/RELICS BE THE FIRST TO SEE RELICS Four STM readers and their families (up to four members) can win an exclusive preview of RELICS: Bricks of the New World, taking place at 4pm on Thursday, attended by the artists. To enter, go to perthnow.com.au/win and enter the code word ‘relics’ along with your details. Entries open today and close at 5pm on Wednesday. Full terms and conditions at perthnow.com.au/win.