An old refrigerator has been transformed into a futuristic wellness resort. A Volkswagen Beetle now powers an underground energy revolution. And a grandfather clock has become a time machine.

Those are just some of the strange and surprisingly detailed worlds Canberrans will be able to explore when the record-breaking exhibition RELICS: A New World Rises arrives at Canberra Museum and Gallery (CMAG) later this year.

Fresh from a successful run at Sydney’s Australian Museum, the exhibition opens on 19 September and will be the final Australian stop before heading to the United States.

Inside the fridge-turned-cryogenic wellness resort. Photo: Relics Exhibitions, Facebook.

Created by Perth mates and Lego Masters winners Jackson Harvey and Alex Towler, RELICS imagines a post-human future where tiny Lego civilisations have adapted to life inside the objects humanity left behind.

More than 500,000 people across Australia and New Zealand have already visited the exhibition.

“Relics is an art exhibition that features Lego communities built into old antique objects, set in a post-human world where humans have left the planet for reasons that remain a little bit ambiguous,” Harvey said.

“It’s fun, and it’s playful, and it’s also got some core messaging about sustainability and particularly trying to get people to reposition their thoughts on our relationship with the material world and the objects that we mass produce, reuse, recycle, throw away.”

The exhibition features 15 large-scale installations built inside genuine second-hand objects sourced from antique stores, salvage yards and even Facebook Marketplace.

“We spent a lot of time … looking for the right objects before we started building. Some of them were easier to find others – like old fridges are a dime a dozen, but to get your hands on an old jukebox proved much more difficult,” Harvey said.

Harvey said the objects themselves often shaped the stories being told.

“You open the fridge door and there’s this big cavernous space and you imagine a cold world straight away,” he said of the fridge display.

“It was really important to us that all the objects were genuine artifacts, genuinely second-hand.”

While Lego is often associated with children, the creators say RELICS was designed just as much for adults.

“Kids will get excited by the intricate Lego, but this exhibition has really been created with adults in mind. The objects themselves are full of nostalgia and the stories we’re telling have a lot of references that only adults will understand,” Towler said.

The items were all rescued from antique stores or Facebook Marketplace. Photo: Relics Exhibitions, Facebook.

CMAG director Dr Anna Wong expects the exhibition to receive just as positive a reaction as it has nationwide.

“It brings together humour, nostalgia, design and extraordinary technical skill, transforming familiar objects into entire worlds of story and imagination,” she said.

Harvey said one of the highlights had been watching different generations experience it together.

“We have kids really engaging with the colour and the bright nature of the Lego, the flashing lights and the fun stories,” he said.

“But then, the much older generations also get that real sense of nostalgia when they see some of these objects they haven’t come into contact with a while.”

The Canberra stop will feature the full exhibition, with all 15 objects making the trip to the capital.

The best part about using Lego? Each exhibition is slightly different.

“We’ve basically spent the last few years … figuring out how to move it,” Harvey said.

“I want to say we haven’t had any breakages, but we’ve had a couple of minor ones. But the best part about Lego is if it falls apart, you can just put it back together. So [the exhibits] are ever evolving.”

Inside the juke box. Photo: Relics Exhibitions, Facebook.

Visitors will also be invited to enter a design competition, creating their own miniature brick civilisation inside a used household object inspired by Canberra and the surrounding region.

Shortlisted entries will be displayed throughout the exhibition’s run.

RELICS: A New World Rises will be on show at Canberra Museum and Gallery from 19 September 2026 to 31 January, 2027. A waitlist for tickets is now open. General tickets are going on sale on 6 August.TO find out about CMAG’s other exhibitions, visit CMAG.