In a Memory Palace

In a Memory Palace is a production by Theatre Nohgaku, with the University of the Incarnate Word (UIW): a meditation on displacement, both the physical displacement of refugees, immigrants and others who make new lives far from home, and the displacement of fragmented memories.

Alongside the performance, the team planned an art exhibition in San Francisco and San Antonio. They wanted people to donate sounds and images about their own families’ migration, such as songs, photos and stories, through a phone app. The contributions would be curated and projected in the exhibition, so the “memory palace” could keep growing.

I mapped the user flow first, to make sure the app served its purpose of collecting and sharing migration stories before designing the look. The welcome screens lead to consent, then home. From there, sharing is one path that splits only where it has to: voice or media.

Lo-fi wireframes tested the structure before any visual design: onboarding, a gallery split into images and voices, uploading with tags, and recording a story.

Moving to hi-fi changed two things. The brief’s sixteen single-word categories became nine grouped tags, such as “Departure | Entry” and “The Familiar | The Unfamiliar”, which are quicker to choose and closer to how people describe a journey. And the plain “Image or video / Voice” choice became two clear cards, Audio and Media.

The visual language comes from the production itself: its layered artwork of faces, maps and leaves, and its costume sketches. A soft sage green and a muted lavender carry the calm, reflective tone, with darker shades for text and buttons.

Two families, sage and lavender, each run from near-black to white, with red, amber and teal kept for errors, warnings and success. Poppins sets everything, from 40px headings to 12px captions.

The onboarding screens do two jobs: explain what the app is for, and get consent for the app’s privacy terms. Two short screens, Share Your Memory and Explore & Be Inspired, set the purpose with real images from the project. The release form follows, and once it’s accepted, the app gets things ready and moves people to the home screen.

The gallery has two tabs, Media and Voices, and a filter by the same tags people use when they share. There’s no search for a specific person, because the brief wanted people to come across stories, not look them up.

Sharing starts from one button. People choose Audio or Media, upload, add a title and at least one tag, and send. The confirmation thanks them and points to the gallery, where their story now lives among everyone else’s.

Some stories are easier to say than to show. Recording a voice note takes one tap on the microphone, with pause and delete while recording, then the same title and tags as any other donation.