delcy Morelos brings the living body of earth to London’s barbican
For ‘origo’, Colombian artist Delcy Morelos fills the Barbican Centre’s Sculpture Court with earth, scent, darkness and touch. Inauguration on May 15, 2026, the memorial installation invites visitors to walk through tunnels made of clay, hay, seeds and spices, creating an experience that feels like entering a living body. Presented as part of the Barbican’s public commission programme, the work marks Morelos’ first major public work in the UK and the first activation of the Sculpture Court in almost a decade.
Against the Barbican’s vast concrete architectureMorelos introduces a porous, fragile and deeply tactile work. The rough surfaces of brutalism meet the warmth of the earth, moisture, smell and handmade matter, making room for a quieter and more intimate way of being together.
Installation view, Delcy Morelos: origo at the Barbican, London, 15 May – 31 July 2026 | all images by Barbican Art Gallery / Thomas Adank. © Delcy Morelos
earth as memory, body and relationship
Born in Tierralta, Colombia, a region deeply affected by armed conflict, land extraction and displacement, Morelos has spent decades working with the land as a living presence. Her early works used red clay pigments to explore the relationship between violence, territory and the human body. Over time, these investigations expanded into large-scale installations that immerse viewers physically and emotionally.
Delcy Morelos draws from Andean and Amazonian ancestral perceptions of the earth as something alive and intertwined with human existence. Soil, for her, carries memory, care, spirituality and toil, a philosophy that shapes every aspect of her installations, from the monumental forms she builds to the spices she incorporates into them. Cinnamon and cloves flavor the work while also protecting the soil through their anti-fungal properties, allowing the material to remain active and healthy throughout the exhibition.
Its facilities are meant to be felt through the body as much as they are understood mentally. Visitors are encouraged to move slowly in the darkness, smell moist earth and spices, notice changes in temperature and sound, and become aware of their physical proximity to the ground beneath them. In recent years, this approach has brought Morelos international recognition through exhibitions at institutions such as Hamburger Bahnhof, Dia Chelsea and Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo.
Delcy Morelos installs monumental earthen pavilion within the Barbican Sculpture Court
a gentle intervention within brutalist architecture
At the Barbican, Morelos places this live material directly in conversation with one of the world’s most iconic brutalist bands. Designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon as a utopian vision of post-war communal life, the Barbican has long represented ideas of permanence, structure and social order through concrete.
The origo responds to this story through contrast and proximity. With dimensions of 24 meters by 18 meters and a height of over three meters, the installation takes the form of an oval pavilion with multiple entrances leading inside. Unlike the sharp geometries that often characterize Morelos’ previous works, this structure is rounded, soft and protective. Visitors are invited to wander through its earthen tunnels before reaching a tranquil central enclosure.
Within the work the city feels remote. The light gradually changes, the sound fades and the smell of soil fills the air. The installation asks people to slow down and reconsider their relationship with the ecosystems that sustain life beneath urban surfaces.
In this encounter between earth and cement, Morelos proposes an understanding of community that extends beyond humans, suggesting that symbiosis also means recognizing our entanglement with soil, microorganisms, plants, and material systems that we often ignore.
the project reactivates the Barbican sculpture court for the first time in almost a decade
reactivating the field of sculpture through collective experience
The project also evokes the original civic ambition of the Barbican’s Sculpture Court, which was conceived as a shared public space where art could become part of everyday life. Morelos returns the space to this purpose while expanding it through her own cosmology, filling it with a tactile and shared environment.
Throughout her practice, the artist resists the separation of ecological thought from social and political histories. Her installations speak of mining, colonial violence, care, spirituality and coexistence all at once, but they do so through atmosphere and material. In origo, these ideas become natural within the concrete landscape of the Barbican. Morelos creates a space that reminds us that softness can hold memory, resilience and collective strength, and that even in the center of the city, the earth remains alive beneath our feet.
the installation invites visitors to gather, wander and rest within its earthen enclosure
Morelos places softness, touch and living matter in dialogue with brutalist concrete
