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On a sweltering midweek afternoon at the Barbican Centre in London, visitors were seeking shelter from the sun. The estate’s brutalist concrete structure itself provides pockets of shade, but the savviest discovered that the coolest places to be were in fact the “caves” inside Origo, a new artwork made from 30 tonnes of soil, clay and spices that currently sits in the centre of the Barbican Sculpture Court.
Delcy Morelos, the 59-year-old Colombian artist behind the work, stretched out her legs on a bench a few metres from the dramatic piece. She didn’t mind, she told me through an interpreter, that visitors were drawn first to the structure’s sun-obstructing properties rather than its artistic merit. After all, for as long as humankind has existed, we have used earth to protect us. “Without a cave and a refuge, we wouldn’t have been able to survive all the predators,” she said. “In this moment [Origo] is a refuge from the sun, but it could also be a cover from the snow or the rain, or the cold.”
Origo, meaning “origin”, is 24 metres wide and almost four metres tall. It took two months to install, as the soil – transported from a farm outside Newcastle – was moulded to ensure it could withstand rain, wind and hail, as well as a London heatwave. After a security bag check, visitors are free to wander in and around the rounded structure’s inner tunnels, to look closely at its vein-like, fibrous texture, and to inhale its sweet fragrance. The scent of cinnamon and cloves comes from a specially designed perfume that is regularly sprayed into the structure’s passages to be taken up by the absorbent soil.
It is Morelos’s first outdoor earth structure. When she conceived of the piece, she assumed its effect would come from the stark contrast with the Barbican’s obviously artificial design. But as she was installing the work, taking in the balconies of the flats that overlook the Sculpture Court, “I realised that the concrete was also a part of a mountain [once],” she said – the cement that forms it having been made from limestone and clay – “and the stones that are inside were also part of a mountain.” Meanwhile, “the floor here” – she pointed at the tiles beneath our feet – “is made out of ceramics”, or clay. The earth that Morelos works with might feel natural compared to the city’s manufactured building materials, but their point of origin is the same. In constructing Origo in the centre of London, Morelos believes she has “brought them back together”.
“The earth is so strong,” she added. “She can process everything, turn it back to food.” To Morelos, soil is a “she” – not an “it” and certainly not a “he” – because earth “has to do with the conception of life, and you were conceived in your mother’s womb”. Morelos believes “we haven’t got out of that womb, we’re still part of it, and we’re still inside it. That’s something we don’t realise often.” Walking around Origo’s dark, cool passages may well remind you.
The purpose of the project is to “show the cycle of life”. The soil will return to the farm outside Newcastle when the exhibit closes at the end of July. “She will go back to where she’s from,” Morelos says – as, when the time comes, will we all.
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