This work draws on the inscriptions aboard NASA's Voyager mission—the artist imagining how they may be interpreted by other life forms. The cosmic scales and freeform line work nod to the intimate traces of life at our feet. The artist meditates on the fact the Voyager, now past the reach of the planets, past the heliosphere and solar wind, can still send messages from interstellar space. She writes, "data transmission may fail in a year from now. Onboard, each stows a phonograph record of gold-plated copper, cut to late twentieth century diagrams, images, and music. Codex to be decoded, perhaps, although the nearest stars and other-life will be 1.8 light years away from the Voyagers’ path, in 40,000 years. Here on Turtle Island, on the forest floor, you can see proliferation in the spring soils—feathery, silvery nets, spreading threads across decomposing layers of millions of leaves shed by generous oaks. Mycelia are more than code. Here is new soil to come."

Mycelia Voyager 5 is a variable, deep blue indigo, created through a direct dye process. The sheet is sheer, with a slightly polished surface—almost translucent. The visual and tactile effect of the paper is like a sky at dusk. The edges of the paper are rough, with pinholes in the corners. The artwork image can only approximate the iridescent color shifts present in the actual drawings.

Courtesy of the Artist