Back to Life is a dark comedy drama following Miri Matteson as she returns to the small coastal town where she grew up, having spent 18 years in prison for a terrible crime. Returning to her childhood home and attempting to rebuild her life, Miri finds herself confronting a world that has moved on without her.

The passage of time became an important part of our approach to the Set Decoration. While much of the series exists firmly in the present day, Miri's relationship with objects and environments is rooted in the world she left behind. Everyday things can appear unfamiliar, fascinating or strangely significant after nearly two decades away.

We used that tension to give the sets a sense of lives continuing while Miri's had effectively stopped. Worn surfaces, old clothes, dried-up make-up, accumulated books and possessions helped create homes that felt genuinely inhabited rather than newly dressed for the story.

Alongside this, we introduced details that quietly connected Miri with the 1990s: plastic-cased Walkmans, foam-padded headphones, embroidered soft furnishings and other once-ordinary objects that had gradually become nostalgic. Walls retained screw holes, damaged plaster and traces of previous decoration.

These details helped tell the story of someone rediscovering the ordinary world and trying to understand where she now belongs within it.

The Set Decoration became part of Miri's rediscovery of everyday life.

Punctuated visually by mixing contemporary surroundings with objects belonging to the world she left behind.