Talia Ellis

In 1977, the Golden Record was launched into outer space aboard NASA’s Voyager. The record was intended as a time capsule to communicate human existence to extraterrestrials. Carl Sagan, the scientist behind assembling The Golden Record, noted that ‘The launching of this ‘bottle’ into the cosmic ‘ocean’ says something very hopeful about life on this planet’. Sending a piece of humanity into outer-space represents the hopeful time in which it was made, in contemplating the future of humanity in 2020 the record reads differently.


Talia Ellis’ practice is concerned with lamenting humanities existence through an engagement with the archive as a form of memorialisation. Inspired by the Golden Record Talia’s recent work is devoted to finding the appropriate vessel with which to incapsulate collective experience. The desired vessel is intended as ephemeral matter which seeks to present intrigue and mystery to it’s ‘finders’. Public space becomes her cosmic ‘ocean’ in which she drops a representation of the present destined to become a fragment of miscellaneous history in the near future.

‘Hello from the children of planet earth.’