Faculty of Design

Graphic Design

Erin McMillan

The Sound of Then

The Sound of Then is a poetic exploration of the noise of nostalgia and the hazy edges of childhood. Composed as a hand-bound book, it layers blurred family photographs with fragments of writing—part typewritten recollections of my childhood, part poetic segments. Using grain and distortion, the work mimics the static of memory, what flickers, what fades, and what returns – or doesn't. It’s less about remembering clearly and more about feeling what once was.

“I’m interested not just in what we remember, but how memory feels. This project is a way of sitting with that blur, the warmth, the hum, the parts that don’t come back clearly. The Sound of Then is about the sensory residue of memory, and the small, ordinary moments that stay with you.”