Faculty of Design

Graphic Design

Erin McMillan

A Quiet Archive of Memory

The goal of this collection is to document personal histories through the lens of an unfolding story — a half-heard dialogue of the past. A glimpse into someone else's life. Something personal, something lost to time, something waiting to be uncovered. – Thank you to Greg and Kim at Beaumont Mill Antiques & Collectibles for their generosity and help in sourcing the postcards used in this project.

“I’ve spent the last year collecting voices that aren’t mine.Postcards from strangers. Fragments of thoughts. Sent decades ago, each one a small moment that wasn’t meant to last. Some faded, some blunt, some beautifully mundane. None of them meant for me—yet I found them anyway. And holding them felt like something important. Something that asked to be remembered.This project started with that feeling. That sharp little ache when you realize someone lived an entire life and what’s left behind is only a sentence or two. A half-thought. It’s not about history, it’s about presence. About how memory clings to small things, and how ordinary moments become the ones that remain. I didn’t only want to preserve these postcards as artifacts. I wanted to listen to them. To let them speak again, in a new way. Through redaction, layering, and touch, I’ve tried to uncover what’s already there, the fragments of memory and the fragility of time. This isn’t a timeline. It’s a kind of emotional archaeology. ”