Seeing Sound
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Concept
This work translates the complete discography of 5 Seconds of Summer into a spectrum of color. Each of the 318 panels represents a single song, they span collaborations, unreleased tracks, and solo projects; together they form both an archive of the band’s journey and a self-portrait of my own. Each color carries a deeply personal association, transforming sound into a visible map of memory, emotion, and survival.
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Process
The process began with listening, playing each song on repeat until a hue emerged, then refining its saturation and value to capture the sound’s weight. Each panel was sanded, glued, and gessoed by hand, then carefully mixed and painted to hold its chosen color. The work is as much about labor as it is about music, the slow accumulation of panels mirroring the devotion of fandom and the physical act of building an installation that embodies sound.
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Experience
Encountering the grid as an outside viewer means stepping into a spectrum that is both intimate and open-ended. While each color holds my own personal associations, the work invites others to make their own connections, linking hues to memories, moods, and songs that maybe they never even knew existed. In that overlap between my translation and theirs, the piece becomes a shared map of how music lives differently in each of us, yet binds us together through recognition and enjoyment.
Meraki Michael
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Meraki Michael 〰️
“When unpredictability defines so much of my world, music becomes an anchor, proof that comfort can be consistent, steady, loud, and alive.”
Music As Medicine
What does recovery sound like? What takes the place of a cure when the prescription fails? How can a sound hold you together the way a pill never could? This installation lingers in the space between treatment and trust, between what’s prescribed and what’s found. It asks how sound can soothe, replace, or resist the systems meant to heal us. Here, music becomes both diagnosis and cure, an act of care built from noise, devotion, and endurance.
Loyalty to the Past with a Passion to the Present
Loyalty to the Past, with a Passion to the Present explores the space between devotion and transformation—between what we hold close and how it continues to shape us. Rooted in memory, repetition, and care, the project reflects on how the things that built us keep echoing long after their moment has passed. It’s a meditation on staying connected to what made us, and the enduring act of honoring where we come from.
