This fall, MOCA will unveil a major site-specific commission by Bogotá-based artist Delcy Morelos. Rooted in her relationship to the land in her native Colombia, Morelos’s practice reflects both the earth’s nourishing, regenerative strength, and the violence of dispossession. Raised in Tierralta by her grandmother, a descendant of the Emberá people, she draws on this heritage in works made from soil, clay, fabric, and plant fibres.

Morelos originally trained as a painter; her practice has evolved into volumetric installations sculpted from earth and organic materials. Defined by their formal precision, these works also activate memory through scent and touch, incorporating aromas blended by the artist herself.

On Floor 2, visitors will encounter a form that stretches and swells from the ceiling, illuminated by natural light. Among Morelos’s most ephemeral large-scale works to date, it follows the contours of a womb and is woven from long strands of sisal rope treated with soil and corn roots harvested in Toronto. Pulling inspiration from the ingenuity of the spider, Morelos spins and weaves a sensory web that binds, catches, shelters, and nurses. 

Titled Ombligo (navel), the work evokes the mark of our origins and our earliest lifeline. Earth is embedded with mixtures of corn, tapioca, and tobacco, recalling their medicinal and nourishing roles in the Americas before European contact and the imposition of political borders. Ombligo’s looming physical presence, fragrance, and texture, creates a space for reflection on sustenance, ritual, migration, extraction, and restoration.