Local seasonal produce rules in the studio kitchen’s mission to provide nourishing, carbon-conscious, vegan food for the team at Studio Olafur Eliasson. How can the kitchen practice extend to other corners of the studio? What other materials could be developed with sustainability in mind? Inspired by the spectrum of colours that fills the studio lunch tables every day, the kitchen team started experimenting, making plant-based pigments as part of the ‘Research lab’. After the food has been cooked and served, veggie waste, such as the outer leaf sheaths of leeks, are dehydrated and then ground into a fine powder. The pigment is labelled and sent down to the watercolour team, who use it to make colour tests for new paintings. Materials research from the ‘Research lab’ is on view as part of Olafur Eliasson’s solo exhibition ‘Sometimes the river is the bridge’, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo this spring, 2020.