Relics: Brick by Brick

It's 2530. After several centuries of environmental decline, humans no longer inhabit the earth. In their absence, the planet is slowly recovering. It's now fallen into smaller hands, much smaller…learning from our mistakes, building on our ruins. The world is now run by a sophisticated civilization. A civilization of Lego Minifigures. Lego Minifigures have taken over the planet and have constructed intricate worlds in the artifacts we left behind. Don't panic. This dystopian world isn't currently reality, but a glimpse of the startling future is now on display at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum.

Kia ora, I'm Nick Yeats, and you're listening to the Amp, the new podcast from Auckland Museum, which amplifies the incredible stories from our collections, our mahi and our place in the Pacific. Today, I'm going to take you for a closer look at RELICS: A New World Rises to show you how exhibitions are made, and how the smallest details can bring a show to life. I'm on the museum's exhibitions team, where I work as an interpretive planner. My job is to take the stories and exhibitions from experts and make them make sense to our visitors. Joining us on this episode are exhibition creators, Alex Towler and Jackson Harvey, the Perth duo, are mates from high school who shared a childhood love of Lego.

Jackson Harvey I was really passionate about it, like I was definitely known as the Lego kid at school, every Christmas, every birthday. I was, yeah, I was really, really into it. But then it wasn't until we went on Lego Masters in 2020 that I think that passion was reignited in a big way. Alex Towler Hi, I am Alex Towler, and I am one of the co-creators of RELICS: A New World Rises Jackson Harvey And my name is Jackson Harvey, and I am the other co-creator of RELICS. Nick Yeats

So far, RELICS has been a smash hit with Aucklanders. They're absolutely loving the exhibition. Now, before we dive into the nuts and bolts, or the bricks and minifigs as the case may be, what is RELICS: A New World Rises. Jackson Harvey

So RELICS is an exhibition that takes you on a journey through an imaginary future, one that is set in the year 2530 where humans no longer remain on planet Earth. We leave the reasons behind this deliberately a little bit ambiguous, up to your imagination, and in this imaginary future, Lego people have risen up from the debris that we've left behind, and they've built new worlds inside all of the derelict old household waste that humans have left behind them. It's an exhibition about storytelling. So there's, uh, there's lots of little stories to find, if you go hunting for them.

Nick Yeats There are so many layers to peel back here, creating themed worlds, huge Marvels made of Lego. I guess a good place to start would be, how did Jackson and Alex find themselves in the enviable position of being professional Lego artists? Alex Towler

I had watched the first season of Lego Masters, and was really compelled by how creative people were being with Lego as a medium and the scale that could be achieved, particularly in terms of the mini figures as well. This idea that there were some bits in that first season that was just like, you got this sense, it was also shot so well by the team that shot Lego masters, that made it look so fantastic, but they created this sense of like there was so much going on, and you could sit there and look at all these different minifigures, and they were all doing something, and that creative storytelling with minifigures was so compelling. And I just thought of Jackson straight away, like he's an incredible visual artist, and somebody that, you know, we had often had ridiculous discussions about endlessly about weird stuff. And I just knew that he had that sense of intrigue and creativity, and we collaborated really well, just conversationally and sort of brain waves are on a similar wavelength. And I thought this would be an interesting combination of people to have a crack at this. And when I asked him, and he was really keen, it was a bit of a surprise, I fully expected him to go, no, but he lit up. And he's like, “Yeah, let's do it.” And then from there, it just sort of hasn't stopped rolling.

Nick Yeats Before Lego masters, their careers and interests were hitting along seemingly divergent paths. Alex Towler

Yeah. I mean, we professionally, we sit on opposite sides of the coin, I think, in a classical sense, engineering and science on my side, and, you know, arts on Jackson's side, and the skills that we've picked up in those different career paths stand us in a slightly different position when we come into this but maybe not as much as you'd think. Engineering is a creative problem solving type of industry, and it requires a level of creativity, as well as an understanding of the physical nature and the maths and all the fun, hard science behind it, but, but for me, the reason I was an environmental engineer is because there was a creative, you know, and also big my undergraduate degree was in marine biology, and I didn't want to go into, like, hard numbers and construction. I liked the environmental side of it, so that definitely factors into the considerations about sustainability and how we interact with the environment, as well as the time and space I spent in that area. But once we get in the workshop, aside from, like, if we need something painted, Jackson's definitely the one to do. We're pretty good at covering all aspects between the two of us, but the illustrative work and the the sort of really creative finishing touches that require the skill and experience that has come with time Jackson has spent as a visual artist definitely mean that he's a very strong asset in that space, but I'm learning. I'd like to learn how to cover everything, and, yeah, once we need to sort out how to do stormwater drainage in the workshop, and I'll be all over that.

Jackson Harvey Yeah, I totally agree. I think, like, the longer we do this, the more our skill sets are converging, you know, like I'm learning about programming and wiring and like, you're also starting to develop a much better eye for the visuals and the set design and the way that things composed visually. So I think it's its only made, made us a stronger and more effective team by having that broader skill set that we kind of bring in, like, mesh together like that. Yeah. Nick Yeats

And after winning the second season of Lego masters, they were commissioned to create an exhibition in Perth at the Goods Shed Gallery, where their only brief was to explore the bounds of their imaginations. And this was the start of the Lego object fusion we see in RELICS. Jackson Harvey

The inspiration to use the old objects. It was born from our first collaborative art exhibition back in Perth in Western Australia, where we're from. Where we were offered an amazing opportunity to build a Lego exhibition in an art gallery. And the art gallery was, it was a big space and had a lot of life and character of its own. It was this old rustic train cargo shed. So if you can imagine like big, cavernous spaces, like rusty metal and timber frames and raw concrete, really interesting space. And the challenge for us when developing the concept for this exhibition was, how do we fill this space with Lego, because if we just try doing it with Lego, it's going to take forever, and it also be really, really expensive, and we were operating on a nonprofit arts organisation budget, so we within these constraints, we came up with the concept of framing the Lego Worlds with the old household objects to fill out that space more and create, like a bit of more of an immersive narrative around where these objects were placed.

Nick Yeats One of my favourite objects is the beetle, an old rusty VW Beetle hooked up to an oil can with many figures playing out a scene reminiscent of Mad Max, the beetle holds about 300 minifigures crowding around a fortress with tensions set to blow. The minifigures are gearing up for a war over the last drops of oil, the dirty fuel that powers their citadel. It's quite a leap from the image we might have of the car from the swinging 60s. So how did this RELICS story get started?

Alex Towler

Beetle poses a couple of really big challenges. The first one is obviously scale. It's very large, and we had to put enough Lego in it to make it feel like it was lived in and like the balance between Lego and the car felt enough. But also the spaces that we wanted to build Lego in were not flat or square or particularly easy to build off. So we had Todd, who was our workshop assistant and carpentry extraordinaire, built a very complicated and bespoke timber frame that's that is the underlying structure of of the Lego build that sits in the very irregular shaped space in the beetle. And what's even more impressive is, if you look at the beetle, you notice it's got a very hard lean to one side. Todd has manufactured the platform so that the platform itself is level, so the buildings go straight up, despite the car being on a lean, which is technically very difficult, not to mention, every time I opened the door to get to the wiring that we were running through the car, I was concerned the car was the door was going to come off of the car was going to break in half, because it's it's so old, it's very old and very real old VW Beetle, but that's what gives it so much charm. It is now very safe and structured and mounted very well to it to the platform that it lives on, but manhandling it in the early days was a bit concerning.

Nick Yeats I know when it comes to exhibitions, it sometimes feels like it takes a world of people to put something together, and relics was no different. Before it arrived at Auckland Museum, Alex and Jackson's team on the other side of the Tasman had a hand in getting it all ready. Jackson Harvey

Yeah, we love talking about this because, of course, doing something of this scale, like it wasn't just Alex and me. We did have a team around us, a very talented bunch of people who also put a lot of hard work into producing this exhibition. So we had, we had two people who were building Lego with us, Ben and cam. Cam's my younger brother, Ben, is an amazing Lego builder who is pretty well established within the Lego community. And so they were both helping us to realise the the ideas that we were having. And it was a very collaborative process as well. They both had some really great insights and input into and really great handling whatever we threw them. And then we had Todd, who was our resident carpentry slash all round workshop, handy guy who helped us with a lot of the the like, the prepping of the objects. So, you know, he, he would say, strip the jukebox and and like, insert all the panels that the platforms that we the sub the timber substructures that we can then build Lego on. And then we had Jim who was another, like, all around workshop guy, just super handy guy with a lot of skills, who helped us with some of the more, like, like intricate things, like how to how to design, like, a bracket system to hold all the TVs together, or the barrier poles or like any other weird little structural stuff.

Nick Yeats

The team's attention to detail and limitless imagination has transformed the humble plastic brick into an extraordinary medium of artistic expression. They've really uncovered the enduring potential of these beloved bricks and the boundless creative magic that comes as each piece is pressed and clicked together. One thing I really loved is the retro vibe that runs through the exhibition. Although each of the different relics are totally unique, there's a nostalgic look and feel that ties everything together. That got me wondering more about that process, how they managed to actually apply that vision to each of their objects?

Alex Towler

Before we'd even thought of the full narrative or the how we were going to get the themes through. We just like the visual style of the post-apocalyptic space, and that came off the back of playing games like Fallout and the Art Deco sort of retro styles of of Bioshock, and they were just, you know, big parts of our lives as as young people, and, you know, playing video games and and watching movies that are set In those sort of spaces, that we wanted to create, work that that fit in that aesthetic, and that was a big source of inspiration for us.

Jackson Harvey Yeah. BioShock was like, yeah, huge. Especially, like, you know, for me, being younger person interested in graphic design and visual art, that was one of the first games that really in many people's elevated video games to being an art form in the depth and complexity of the art direction in that game was something was definitely an influence. And probably anyone who played it those games could see that coming through. Alex Towler

And the retro future of Fallout is so amazing, it's something really compelling about imagining the future, but of the aesthetic here, like the point where we disconnected from the world that we know now is actually in a time that's already passed, and what it does really well, and we've one of the reasons that drew us towards older, more characterful objects is we already have that sense of time. Or having passed when you see something like a jukebox or a beetle, because they're not around now. So we've already done half the work to help you imagine a future, because those are already from the past. And it's a really good like starting point to tell the full narrative,

Jackson Harvey To create a sense of age, right? Because, I mean, if you presented like, like a MacBook or like a modern kitchen, it wouldn't have that same emotional impact and that that creating that like it, that that like an illusion of it being much older than actually is. Alex Towler

Yeah, we've tossed those items aside, and they also play into the narrative of waste, because those objects have already been discarded by the current world. They're just cooler to look at like, I think the if we done the kitchen with a Thermomix instead of like a fridge from the 60s, it would have been super boring. Jackson Harvey

No exactly. They must like, feel like anachronistic in the future? Yeah, I think that's, that's the that weird look like, oh, that's, that's old for us. Therefore, for the future, it's very old. Nick Yeats Part of what makes the exhibition so gripping is a level of detail that permeates every bit. No matter where you stand or how tall or short you are. There's something new that can be discovered at every angle. Alex Towler

The challenge for us is balancing distance and and also knowing where to focus energy on detail. Because you know you could, you find yourself sometimes, like working on the back of a building, and like doing this, doing something on the back that an architectural detail, or adding a drainage pipe, and you have a moment you're like, why am I doing this? No one can see this, but it's important that it's there, because that's what makes relics world feel real. And my drainage background, stormwater engineer, I was like, No, it needs drainage!

Nick Yeats It's that tinkering away that's really made the exhibition what it is. Alex Towler It's funny, because we've worked with these particular displays for a few years now, and you sort of ebb and flow between which ones you're in love with, I'm not in love with in a moment, and which ones you're maybe seeing room for improvement. For me, it the cathode Studios, which is our CRT television... Nick Yeats

I'm just going to jump in here and explain what a CRT television is, for anyone who doesn't know. CRT stands for cathode ray tube, and they're the old school, boxy TVs that might have had an aerial on top. Alex Towler

…always sits at the top for me, because I think it pulls together all of the aspects of RELICS really discreetly that I like the most, and I think are most effective. We have a really strong nostalgic component with the CRT televisions, like they make you feel something you don't see CRT TVs as much these days, and they have a particular quality to them, and the picture quality that it's just an immediate sense of nostalgia that I love, and it's very evocative in that sense. I think the way we've crafted the Lego sets within the TVs that we've built in, I love making them look like little movie sets, because there are some really recognisable elements of movie sets that work great at that scale. And have finally built out a Lego like the set lighting and like the cameras and the vignettes that come off the back of like what you'd imagine happening on a movie set are always really fun, too. And also the use of stop motion, which is a whole extra element in the exhibition that is so effective at making the Lego feel alive. There's some I just love the moment when you're watching the stop motion, and right next to it is the mini figure that you're seeing animated on the TV, and they suddenly just feel alive in that moment. And I think all of that together always puts that one up on top of my list. It's always a good moment in the exhibition.

Nick Yeats A jet ski, a chunky old school TV. These items, I think we should mention, they're not small by any means, a car for starters! Alex and Jackson had to gather up items that can support detailed worlds inside them. They needed to be pretty sizeable. So how did they go about finding these relics? Jackson Harvey

Some of them definitely did pose a bit more of a challenge. What springs to mind immediately for me is the jukebox. Jukeboxes are just this, that they're just this like icon of like a bygone era when like form and function were both held in the same regard. When manufacturing, designing new objects these days, we consume music through a sleek, little black rectangle that comes out of our pockets, right? But, you know, there was a time when people built these elaborate, beautifully well designed pieces of furniture to listen to a select number of songs. So given that this technology has been superseded several times since they were first built, it's really hard to. Find them. And we've been looking for months. I was on Facebook marketplace like every day for a few months, looking for one, first in Perth and then nationally, in Australia. And we'd given up hope, and we were even considering importing one from the US. And then one afternoon, I saw this, the perfect specimen pop up on Facebook marketplace about an hour's drive from where I lived, and so immediately called Alex and said, We've got to go get this thing before somebody else gets it. And we both drove down there, and within a couple of hours, it was sitting in our workshop.

Alex Towler We do feel a bit strange asking people for some of these items, given the context of what we're going to do with it? Yeah, we it's pretty absurd. When you say, Oh, this beautiful jukebox that you've got, you've been sitting here that that is probably beyond repair. I'm not sure what people hope would happen to it, but I'm sure they didn't think it would be filled with Lego and put in a gallery space in museums. Jackson Harvey It’s getting a new life in a different way. Alex Towler

I feel really like, I really believe we're giving some of these objects a life that's so much beyond what they would have had. I mean, the jet ski is a great example of that. It was sitting in the backyard of this guy outside of Perth. It was just rotting away in his backyard, and he had cut them. He cut the motor out of it and cut a huge hole in the back of it, and he was planning to install, like an outboard motor on the jet ski for some reason, and he was gonna go fishing with it. And he just, mid project, decided it was too hard, and then it was just gonna, I mean, it was just gonna sit there forever and probably end up in landfill. And now, you know, we're up to hundreds of thousands of people that have been able to stand in front of it and bring them joy. So that's really exemplifies what the point of RELICS is.

Jackson Harvey

Yeah, yeah. Well, even the beetle as well, has a similar story. And like, man, like, that thing is so far beyond roadworthy. Like, it would never have been driven again. It was rusting away in a sand pit in someone's backyard in a little rural town a few hours south of Perth. So, Alex and I just drove down one day and like, hand winched it on a car trailer out of this sand pit. The owner just rocked up and, like, we paid for it, and then they just left. Yeah, yeah, it's, like, buried half deep, like, like, like, a good, like, 10 centimetres deep in a sand pit.

Nick Yeats They managed to drag the beetle out of the sand and gave it a good dusting. But where did all the Lego come from? Jackson Harvey

Getting this much Lego to build something like this is, yeah, it is a bit tricky. It's not simply a matter of just rocking one down to your department store and cleaning out the shelves. We it was important to us to use as much second-hand Lego as we could. So at the beginning of the process, we we had several 100 kilos of Lego left over from our first exhibition. And then we bought, I mean, like another 700 kilos of just in they came in big crates. It was bulk. It was unsorted, it was random pieces. So all second-hand from second-hand dealers, and from there, like, if we, if we want, to say, acquire a specific minifigure or a specific type of brick for architectural detailing, like the icing on the cake, so to speak, then we acquire that Lego from a Lego aftermarket called Bricklink, which was just quite popular amongst the adult Lego community, where it's a it's kind of like eBay for Lego. People will part out LEGO sets. They will sell old, second-hand Lego by the piece. So if you want to buy like a specific minifigure, or if you want to buy, like 100 palm tree leaves, then that is a resource that's available.

Nick Yeats And how much Lego did they end up gathering for RELICS? Alex Towler Somewhere around a tonne is probably a good metric of how much Lego is in there. I'm sure there's a formula to work out roughly how many pieces that is. But pieces are hard to count, and it can be a bit misleading, because misleading, because, you know, you can have a huge Lego piece, or you can have a really, really tiny one. Nick Yeats

For context, an average one by four brick weighs about two and a half grams. Although this can vary a lot, because different coloured plastics have different densities. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole online, trying to work this out either way, sorting a metric tonne of Lego is pretty impressive. 1000 kilograms of Lego that's the weight of a small car, an adult polar bear and a newborn humpback whale, among other things. A metric tonne in terms of Lego pieces, though, that's pretty incredible to imagine. So where on earth do you begin when you've got 1000 kilograms of Lego? I'm picturing a huge warehouse full of clear boxes filled to the brim with different coloured pieces, different shapes and sizes all ready to be picked up and used to create something new.

Jackson Harvey So we then had to sort that logo. And so we developed a system of about 90 functional categories that we had to sort that Lego into. And it took weeks, and we ended up having to get people into help us, because it was just taking taking so long. So that formed the base library of of our Lego palette. Nick Yeats

One of the challenges that the creators and our exhibition team faced was how to show the intricacy of the designs, allowing the public to get up close, but also making sure the displays were protected. I mean, it will be pretty tempting for visiting Lego enthusiasts to add their own touches. Unlike other exhibitions or the collection items in our permanent galleries, the relics aren't inside glass cases, but there are barriers around them allowing visitors to lean in and get a closer look at the different scenes taking place. I mentioned at the start of this episode that part of my role was to think of ways to enhance the relics exhibition for its time at Auckland Museum with a touring exhibition. It's not just a case of picking up a readymade product and dropping it into a new space. There's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes. We also need to take special care, to conserve and protect artifacts, which could be 1000s of years old. RELICS gave us a pretty unique situation in and that we had more space than we needed, and that the show was focused around art objects, although it needed some protection, it wasn't as restricted as artefacts like the delicate 200-year-old Māori sail Te Rā, or 4000-year-old finds from Stonehenge we've been entrusted with for our recent exhibitions. So, there was more scope for creative freedom, or having the displays more open. Every year, the museum hosts a number of international touring exhibitions or special exhibitions that explore human culture and natural science from around the globe. These are often created by other museums as a way to share historical stories and items from their collections. They're usually exciting exhibitions, blockbuster in their nature, and they bring the wider world to Aotearoa, I love the way these touring exhibitions create a sort of global exchange of our history and our stories, and I often wonder about which moments and memories of an exhibition will stay with people after they've headed out of the museum doors and trundled across the domain back into their daily lives.

Jackson Harvey

A couple of key takeaways that we really hope people walk out having absorbed one of them is regarding the conversations around sustainability and how we use, reuse, recycle and discard a lot of materials and waste products, by contrasting these really bright and colourful worlds of the minifigures with this desolate world that surrounds them, that humans have abused and abandoned. We're really aiming to draw attention to the way that these objects that we produce, whether it's Lego or an old fridge or an automobile, how they're going to outlive us, like long after we're gone after a human lifespan, and so get people really thinking about their relationship with the material world and consumer products. That's, um, yeah, one of the big takeaways. We hope people really think about, re-examining the way that they are living their life now. Because if we, I guess, it's posing the challenging question of, like, you know, where are we heading if we keep going in this direction, if we keep making the choices that we currently making.

Alex Towler

Yeah, the, I mean, the main discussion that, or the main thinking points, we hope people walk away and ponder, are really about where the future is headed and what the future could look. Look like, like relics is an imagined future, and it's an imagined future where things have gone pretty poorly. We're hoping that, like displaying that that outcome makes you question where we're potentially headed. But also, I mean, fundamentally, it's about getting people excited about being creative and and expressing that creativity doesn't have to exist in a particular format. You can be a bit absurd with it, and find your own ways to be creative and and really encourage people to pursue the elements of creativity in their life that inspire them and that they're engaged with. You know, it's pretty absurd building Lego in a VW Beetle, or, like, you know, throwing Lego on a 300-year-old grandfather clock. And I'm hoping that the absurdity of that encourages people to look at things a bit differently and maybe, maybe find their own little ways to be. Express themselves and and be a bit quirky and unique.

Nick Yeats It's a funny balance Lego, the iconic Danish toy brick, being used to communicate a pretty substantial topic. Alex Towler

I mean, it's a big part of what we like about using Lego to have the discussion. It can seem pretty scary to think about the reality of climate change and the future, and how our probably lack of sustainable behaviour, historically has been a big contributing factor to that. And once you sort of factor that all in, it can be really daunting. And the natural response, I think human response is to run away from it and to not think about it because it is too scary. And I'm hoping that by using something as fun as Lego as the medium to broach that discussion, that it makes it much, much more accessible, and we can think about it and not feel complete doom and gloom and panic in terms of the future. It's, it is, it is scary. And we're not suggesting that we have all the answers, but we are hoping that it sits at the front of people's mind, thinking about it not, not pushing it back

Nick Yeats RELICS explores an imagined future that might not be as far removed from reality as we think. Something that stands up to me is that it's so multifaceted. It's meticulously crafted and thought provoking, but also full of whimsy. So it appeals to children and adults. Jackson Harvey

Another big rationale behind using Lego is because it is this medium that so many people have an emotional connection with across generations. It's been around for since the 50s. So whether or not, like you know, you played with Lego when you're a kid or your parents bought you Lego, your own children play with Lego. It is something that does seem to connect to people across generations really well, and of course, like it, you know, it has a strong appeal to the younger audience. Alex Towler

Yeah. I mean, for where we sit, the problems of the modern world require pretty novel solutions. I think we've demonstrated pretty clearly that the pattern of behaviour that humanity seems to display is not getting us anywhere, and potentially the future, the solution and where we can really start to move forward in a positive way, is to start looking at things differently. Yeah, and then we sort of have done that a bit on the nose in the exhibition. Like, you know, we've reimagined a beetle as a as a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max society. But the point there is that it could be used for something else. It's not. It's just because it's it's not functional anymore. As its original purpose doesn't mean it's now no longer a useful thing. And hopefully this there's lots of creative ideas that people have out there that could solve some pretty tough problems.

Jackson Harvey Yeah, I think for me, like it comes down to that, um, that it's a pretty classic creativity exercise where it's like, pick up an object and just rat off as many different uses for it as you can, you know. So, like, you pick up a pencil and you're like, okay, yeah, it's a pencil. It writes. But what else? What else can use it? What else could you use a pencil for? Jackson Harvey

But, yeah I guess you see what I'm getting at is it like it's it's about relaxing your perceptions of what the purposes of the objects, the personnel, the skills you have, like, whatever resources at your disposal Don't be constrained by what you think they might only be able to be used for. And Lego is a great example of, like, it's a very physical way of doing that. You know, there's the concept in Lego of NPU, which stands for ‘nice parts usage’ is used to refer to when you take a Lego element and use it for something other than its intended purpose. For example, in the architectural facades of the piano, we've actually used a lot of minifigure hats to create some of the more ornate detailing in like the reliefs in the facades, which you know it's because when you look, we look at them. We don't just see hats, we also see what other purposes they could fulfill.

Nick Yeats When you visit RELICS, you'll be transported to and from 2530, as you weave around the gallery, you'll hear soft jazz music playing the occasional wear of machinery turning on the chiming of the grandfather clock and other atmospheric elements to guide you through the post-apocalyptic worlds. Jackson Harvey

Yeah, so it's it's definitely this coming through RELICS is a multilayered storytelling experience. We really hope to reward the people who are prepared to look a bit deeper into it. So you have, at the first level, you have the overarching narrative of the post human world, this world that lies in ruins, the settings for the actual objects themselves, that that tell a story of decay and and and loss. And then the second tier is the actual Lego communities themselves. You know, what they've chosen to do with the object, how they're interacting with it. Some are thriving, and some are some are potentially at risk of following the footsteps of the humans. And there's a range of contrasts there as well. But then for those visitors who are prepared to hunt a bit deeper, every minifigure that we've placed is intended to tell a story or contribute to a wider story as well. You know, with they've all been carefully posed, and we've carefully selected expressions and costumes for them to really give a sense that these, these individuals, have their own stories to tell, and that visitors to the exhibition also can then project their own stories onto it as well. And that's one of the funniest things I've seen the exhibition is, is seeing people make up their own stories for the characters that we've put together because we had so much fun doing it.

Alex Towler

It's funny. There's a couple of like, they're not, they weren't, they didn't seem ambiguous to us. There are a couple of vignettes that apparently are quite ambiguous. And it's fascinating, the like range of stories or like characters that people will build out of one minifigure or two minifigures interacting and what's going on. And there are a couple of vignettes that they're so absurd that it's funny, trying to see people rationalize what they think is going on. It's great. We love we love seeing people tell their own stories when they see RELICS, and projecting their experiences and their their influences onto the work that we've put in, I think leaving enough space for people to be able to do that. Do that makes it so much more fun for people to engage with.

Jackson Harvey Totally, yeah, if it elicits that creativity, that's exactly what we're hoping to achieve. Alex Towler Creative problem solving is, is where some of the best ideas come from, and people that find ways to use what's around them and reimagine or repurpose something that's really available, or look at something that in a way that nobody has looked at it before, is often where the game changing style creative solutions come from. Nick Yeats

Part of what makes Alex and Jackson's RELICS journey so exciting, I think, for me, is that it's now become their jobs. They've both become full time Lego artists, which isn't a title a lot of people get to claim. So what advice would they give to creative people wanting to start a career as a maker? Alex Towler

The term maker is so broad as well. I think that's what's fun about being a maker, is being able to bring together multiple different crafts or skill sets or elements that don't usually go together, and try and work out how they fit together in a creative way. Having a problem solver, which is sort of the fun bit of being a maker. So if you've got a mind that likes solving problems and looking at things, particularly from a spatial perspective or from a visual perspective. The easiest way to become a maker is just start like, have a look at what you can do already, what have you got, what's your starting point, and just keep adding to it and looking left field. Like, for us, picking up programming and soldering and circuitry is not something that at first glance I thought we would need, but being able to combine that with the pieces made them more dynamic and more interesting. So the trick to being a maker is just to get your hands on as much as you can and and cast your mind, cast your eyes a little bit wider, and be exposed to as much maker work as you can because there's so many incredible people out there who are thinking really laterally and putting together really cool things. Yeah, just get started. And whatever skill set you have is just as valid in making, being a maker and developing that, because you have a very unique set of skills. Whatever they are, they are unique to you, and that means whatever you're doing is unique to you. So, yeah, don't feel like because you don't know how to program or do circuitry straight away that you can't then try it or get stuck into it.

Jackson Harvey

Also, like, to add to that, I guess the resources that are available online these days are phenomenal. It's crazy. It's totally different when we were growing up. But like these days, like, like, a lot of the skills that we developed for relics, like, we simply learned by watching YouTube. There are so many talented and skilled people out there who are so willing to share information and knowledge, and it's all out there. Yeah, so I guess I would also encourage if you, if you're looking to develop a particular skill set, a skill I think by definition, it requires practice, right? So, research, change, find resources and practice.

Nick Yeats Something I really like is how the minifigures have endless personality within their worlds. They have so much going on. They have careers, law and order, chaos, fun, arguments. You can zero in on every minifigure, and they're all playing a part. Do Alex and Jackson have a favourite? Jackson Harvey Yes, is this the moment? Alex Towler Yes. Jackson Harvey

So there is okay…So Alex and myself have placed our own minifigures in every world. However, there is another minifigure that does also appear in every world, and this is actually the first time that we've spoken about him publicly. His name is Leonard, and he can be found either in in the displays or in the shadow boxes, the small shadow boxes in the interpretive panels. He he as a starting point. He's the hermit who's sitting in the shack with the solar panel at the back of the beetle. So he has the same face, but he changes costume and is in different situations. And Alex and I have a bit of a backstory for him, where he's, he's been, he's kind of like the Forrest Gump of RELICS. He's there at all pivotal moments. Yeah, yeah. He has some ups and he has some downs, but he he does have a happy ending.

Alex Towler He does, yeah, he's, he has some really low moments, which we felt quite guilty for putting him in that position. But it's really a story of triumph and persistence. So if anybody wants to fall really of Leonard in relics, yeah, he's in there. Nick Yeats

I'm Nick Yeats, and that was ‘Relics: Brick by Brick’. This podcast is brought to you by Auckland Museum, supported by the Stevenson foundation. This episode was written and produced by Laura Skerritt and Steph Strock. Sound design by Sarah O'Brien, the executive producer was Teresa Cowie from Connect Content. Thanks to our guests, the creators of RELICS, Alex Towler and Jackson Harvey. To find videos and more information about the exhibition, head to the link in our show notes. On the next episode of the Amp, we find out what goes into discovering a new species and how some of our entomology collections have been enthralling tamariki for decades.