It smells like my ranch!' Diva of dirt Delcy Morelos and her amazing 30-tonne earthworks

"The earth's cool breath is the first thing that hits me. Scented with clove and cinnamon, it catches my senses by surprise in the dim, while a vast soil sculpture emerges around me as if from a dream, just as the artist intended. I'm contained within its mammoth, terraced walls of reddish soil and struck by the silence, the peace felt in being held by nothing but earth."

"I'm in Mexico City, inside The Womb Space, a cavernous earthwork by Delcy Morelos. Now in its ninth and final month, the show has been a word-of-mouth sensation, drawing more than 60,000 visitors. Its draw lies in an often nostalgic appeal to the senses—a woman in her 70s enters and whispers: It smells like my ranch! Like playing in the dirt as a child."

"Remarkably, it turns out the sculpture's soil was actually sourced from the region the woman is from. Together, we take in the earthwork's cascading plant matter, its humidity and the uncanny aliveness emanating from within. It's almost like standing inside a mountain: you feel humbled and somehow more primal, the response more visceral than cerebral."

"Magic has always been here. If there wasn't magic in the world, I wouldn't want to be alive. The Womb Space offers a similar experience to Morelos' latest earthwork, Origo, meaning Origin—a multisensory installation about to open to the public in the Sculpture Court of the Barbican in London. Both immersive artworks are part of her 14-year inquiry into our relationship with the material that, she says, sustains all life but is most humble: soil."

A cavernous earthwork in Mexico City creates an immersive environment through scent, silence, humidity, and terraced reddish soil. Visitors enter a mammoth structure and observe its circular form without touching it, experiencing curiosity, fear, and solace. The installation draws large crowds through word-of-mouth appeal tied to sensory nostalgia, including recognition of the soil’s ranch-like smell. The sculpture’s soil is sourced from the region of a visitor who identifies it by scent. The experience feels like standing inside a mountain, humbling visitors and making responses more visceral than cerebral. Similar multisensory earthworks are planned for London, continuing a long inquiry into soil as the humble material sustaining life.

Read at www.theguardian.com