Delcy Morelos: origo

For the first time, UK audiences can experience a major public artwork by Colombian artist Delcy Morelos, presented by the Barbican from 15 May – 31 July 2026. The project will respond to the Barbican’s iconic concrete architecture, carrying forward the Visual Arts’ commitment to commissioning beyond its gallery walls.
These sculptural installations function as multisensory environments. Handbuilt from clay, soil, hay and plant seed, Morelos sows the earthen bodies of her works with fragrant spices, including cinnamon and cloves, which also contain antifungal properties vital for maintaining the health of the soil. origo, measuring 24 meters by 18 meters in diameter, and reaching over three metres in height, is Morelos’ most ambitious outdoor work to date. The sculpture invites the public to surround themselves with this mass of earth; to roam its tunnels, experience its shifting light and fragrant smells, rest in its central enclosure and become part of its ecosystem.
Delcy Morelos’s practice is rooted in ancestral Andean cosmovisions and the aesthetics of Minimalism and Abstraction. Her works inspire rumination on the interplay between human beings and the materiality of earth. Developing her material investigations into soil and plant matter through a framework informed by Andean and Amazonian relations to land, Morelos began creating colossal, monochromatic earthworks in which she intends her audience to be immersed.
For more information visit: https://www.barbican.org.uk/our-story/press-room/delcy-morelos-origo