A compelling exhibition using LEGO® bricks is travelling to the Museum of the Great Southern, after a successful debut at the WA Maritime Museum.
Plunging enthusiasts into stories behind some of the world’s most fascinating shipwrecks, Brickwrecks: Sunken ships in LEGO® bricks! is a partnership between Ryan “The Brickman” McNaught, the Western Australian Museum, and the Australian National Maritime Museum.
Brickwrecks: Sunken ships in LEGO® bricks! opens at the Museum of the Great Southern (Albany) on Saturday, 26 February.
Museum of the Great Southern Regional Manager Catherine Salmaggi said the exhibition is an extraordinary experience where maritime archaeology, technology, and creativity – not to mention meticulous planning and patience – merge to interpret the ships, their stories, and the wreck sites – their final resting places.
“Research by maritime archaeologists provides a unique record of human endeavour, engineering, and a spirit of adventure inspired by trade, exploration, global politics, and pursuit of maritime superiority.
“These incredible large-scale models (up to 1.6m in length), multi-media exhibits, and real objects from the wrecks will both delight and inspire,” Ms Salmaggi said.
Ryan “The Brickman” McNaught, a LEGO® Certified Professional, and one of only 14 in the world and the only one in the Southern Hemisphere, said that collaborating on this project reignited his childhood interest in shipwrecks.
“The team spent more than 800 hours, used over 120,000 LEGO® bricks, and had a tonne of fun bringing these models to life with lots of minifig details and historical facts,” Mr McNaught said.
“We hope visitors have just as much fun exploring them as we did building them.”
The wrecks featured in the exhibition include:
- One of the oldest known shipwrecks which sank off Uluburun, Turkey, around 1300 BCE;
- Batavia, a Dutch trading vessel that sank in 1629 off the Houtman Abrolhos, Western Australia;
- Falcon ROV, a remote operating vehicle, used to explore the wreck of the HMS Terror.
- The HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, both wrecked in 1848 off King William Island, Canada, whilst searching for the North West Passage;
- RMS Titanic, the luxury steamship that sank in the North Atlantic in 1912; and
- MV Rena, the Liberian-flagged container ship that sank at Astrolabe Reef, New Zealand, in 2011.
Brickwrecks: Sunken ships in LEGO® bricks! is on display at the Museum of the Great Southern from 26 February to 8 May 2022.
Tickets on sale now museum.wa.gov.au/greatsouthern/brickwrecks
Media Contact:
Flora Perrella
Western Australian Museum
flora.perrella@museum.wa.gov.au
