A huge circle of plant-covered clay will fill the Barbican’s Sculpture Court next spring and will be the first UK public commission by Colombian artist Delcy Morelos.
Delcy Morelos, El abrazo (The Embrace, detail), 2023. Installation view, Dia Chelsea, New York, 2023. Photo credit: Don Stahl. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
For the Barbican, Morelos has designed her most ambitious outdoor work to date: an “ovular pavilion” made of clay, soil, fragrant spices, and plant materials, spanning roughly 24 metres in circumference.
The ovular pavilion turns out to be a tall circular wall that will sit in the Sculpture Court, with entrances to walk inside, and you will also be able to walk inside the wall as it will be hollow, and on one side will have a long curving corridor through the wall.
Think of it as a sort of Stonehenge, made from clay and covered in plants.
Concept from the planning application
We’re told that “Morelos’ unique worldview, which is informed by ancestral knowledge from South America, will be put into direct dialogue with the utopic, humanist values that underpin the Barbican Estate, a dialogue that is crystallised in the relationship between soil and cement.”
In other words, it’s a tall plant covered wall in the Barbican.
Which, if nothing else, should be visually impressive.
It will be free to visit, and opens on 15th May 2026.
The installation marks the first large-scale artistic commission in the Sculpture Court in a decade.