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Tthe fresh air of the earth is the first thing that hits me. Scented with clove and cinnamon, it takes me by surprise in the dark, when a large clay sculpture appears around me as if from a dream, as the artist intended. I’m inside its massive walls, lined with brown clay and I’m struck by the silence, the peace that comes from being kept by the earth. A stranger is lying on the ground nearby, contemplating the circular, 12-meter-tall building that towers over us. I resist the temptation to massage, instead sniffing and looking at the work, feeling a mixture of curiosity, fear and comfort.
I am in Mexico City, inside The Womb Space, a cave designed by Delcy Morelos. Now in its ninth and final month, the show has been a hit, attracting more than 60,000 visitors. Its charm lies in the unsettling appeal to its power – a woman in her 70s walks in and whispers: “It smells like my farm! Like playing in the dirt like a child.” Interestingly, the soil for the sculpture came from the area where the woman comes from. Together, we absorb the oozing vegetation, its moisture and magical life from within. It’s like standing inside a mountain: you feel humbled and somehow, the response is more visual than cerebral.
The Womb Space also offers a parallel to Morelos’ latest work, Origo, meaning Origin – an installation of many works that are about to be opened to the public. sculpture Barbican Court in London. Both of these profound paintings are part of a 14-year investigation into our relationship with the things that, he says, “sustain all life but are so humble”: the earth. Shown around the world – including creations like the maze Paradiso on Earth at the 2022 Venice Biennale – his architecture is sublime, offering an encounter between us and what he calls “our origins – like that first dark, damp place from which we all come”.
The Origo is a 24 meter high, ovular pavilion with cave-like passages for visitors to explore. There is also a patio in the middle to relax, where meditation activities will be held, such as tai chi. He said: “I thought about what a Londoner would want. “What I can bring from where I am, where I come from.” With material and egg-like shapes, Morelos’ work will be in quick conversation with the Barbican, a concrete building that, he reminds me, also came from the earth.
We meet in a cafe. Petite is bright-eyed, wearing a hand-woven indigo poncho, and calls her dirt skills “work, work even”, saying it has given her more energy than ever. “I want to create experiences,” he says, “where people find answers to questions they didn’t know they had.”
We talk about many things: the loss of the sacred and our fear of death – an event that marks our return to the world that has fed us so much. “I work with the earth so you know you are made of the earth,” says Morelos. “There is no separation, if you hurt me, you hurt yourself.”
This way of thinking comes from the Andean environment his work is rooted in: a worldview where mountains, seas and the like are seen as intelligent creatures instead of things to be used. Morelos says that for his Amazonian teacher, Isaías Román, “the universe is a muscleswoven fabric – everything is important.” He happily summarized: “It is absurd to think that a river is not alive – when it supports the life of everything that feeds from it!”
Morelos, 58, grew up in a small Colombian town called Tierralta. He remembers that every day he would sweep the floor of the house with his grandmother to reduce the dust. After attending art school, Morelos created mainly blood-red works, a way of dealing with the violence he saw around him as armed groups fought over the richest coca plantation. These conflicts eventually led to his interest in the world – something that should be “cared for, not owned”.
The artist’s next installation is a mix of landscape art, arte povera, minimalism and Spanish architecture and modernity. Morelos wants to dispel the belief that dirt is the earth’s soil, to be mined for gold and oil. Writing about his work, the Oaxacan activist, Yásnaya Aguilar, says that the myth of the creation of Adam and Eve places humans at the center of life, having “dominion… over every living thing”, according to the Bible. This undermined the pagan beliefs of Europe, says Morelos, and helped to justify our abolitionist culture. Aguilar goes on to explain how even “the idea of the world as a property came with colonialism”, an idea that is very different from the traditional idea of the collective sphere.
In response to this, the elevation of the country of Morelos is high, which means that the land is the same as the meeting. “The horizontal relationships are very interesting,” he says. “Because there is another aspect of attention, of listening.” A Colombian expression used when someone is not listening is ‘pon me cuidado’, which means ‘put your attention on me’.
So that’s what they do. “I listen to the space, the materials used to create it, the memory of what was there. That’s where care begins.” He sees this care as something shared, pervasive between us and everything else, from oceans to rocks to ants. “Care is what means our species exists.”
Origo will be free to enter, which pleases Morelos. “It means people can visit multiple times, see it move with the seasons and time.” It has taken a lot of people – 30 tons of dirt passed through Morelos by the hands of his team – but Origo will be removed in August. “There is a magic, almost, that paintings should be preserved forever,” he says. “But I like the idea of being unstable.” They compare the English countryside through the seasons: new leaves appear, flowers bloom, leaves fall. “This work will live on in the memories of those who lived there.”
Finally, our conversation turns to the mystical and magical part of his work. “How can I say that?” He says with a shudder, then laughs. “Magic has been there since time immemorial. I feel this in The Womb Space, I see some unknown force and I look under the shadow, and I feel my eyes returning. A woman holds her daughter’s hand in front of the coming dirt, her eyes are red.
“It makes me feel like the world and I’m not a stranger,” he says quietly. This, Morelos said, is his hope. “I want to make a place for you to be with him. Here, the world will hold you. I want Origo to move people, to help them realize that we don’t need much to live. The world is too much.”
