Delcy Morelos weaves a womb-like earthwork at MOCA Toronto

Colombian artist Delcy Morelos has created a womb-like installation from soil-treated sisal rope and locally harvested corn roots for Ombligo, a new commission at MOCA Toronto. Suspended from the ceiling and shaped by natural light, the work draws on the earth’s capacity to nourish and regenerate while reflecting on dispossession, migration and humanity’s relationship with the natural world.

A woven form suspended between shelter and landscape

On the museum’s second floor, long strands of sisal rope stretch and swell into a form that follows the contours of a womb. Treated with local soil and woven into a sensory web, the strands bind, catch and shelter, while the installation’s changing relationship to daylight gives the earthbound materials a shifting presence.

The work is titled Ombligo, the Spanish word for navel. Morelos connects the name to the body’s earliest lifeline and to the origins that link people to land. The soil incorporates corn, tapioca and tobacco, ingredients associated with nourishment and medicine in the Americas before European contact and the imposition of political borders.

Earth, memory and inherited knowledge

Morelos’s practice has developed from paintings made with natural pigments on paper into large, spatial works composed of soil and other organic materials. Their precise geometries draw on ancestral cosmologies across the Andes and Amazon, alongside the formal languages of hard-edge painting, minimalism and land art.

Her work with mud also carries knowledge passed down by her grandmother, a descendant of the Emberá people. Morelos incorporates custom fragrances into some works, using scent and touch to activate memory. In Ombligo, the scale and woven construction turn these material concerns into an environment that asks visitors to consider sustenance, ritual, extraction and restoration.

Made with local materials and collaborators

The commission was created with Tamat, an architecture studio based in Mexico, where the sisal rope was produced. Soil was sourced locally, while corn roots were grown and harvested by Crooked Farmz in Toronto and Ratcliff Farms in Stouffville, Ontario. The project brings these contributions together in a work that reflects on how materials, labour and place shape relationships with the land.

Project Credits

Artist: Delcy Morelos
Title: Ombligo
Venue: MOCA Toronto
Collaborators: Tamat, Crooked Farmz, Ratcliff Farms
Photography: LF Documentation; Pepe Morón
Location: Toronto, Canada
Dates: 4 October 2026 – 14 February 2027