The work with plants is guided by the belief that they are the most important element. This leads to the need to have them close, to plant them, in order to study and understand them more deeply.

From the beginning of the project, we envisioned the idea of bringing together the 11 plants in a single garden and adapting them to the climate of Medellín. Some adapted successfully, like Huitillo, which propagates easily through seeds—seeds that are obtained as a byproduct of extracting pigment from the fruit peel and are very simple to reproduce. Others, however—particularly those that are trees—were much harder to obtain, transport, and plant, and could not adapt.

The plants that did adapt became our garden. This allowed us to obtain pigments in a sustainable way and to have continuous access to raw material. Later, as the plants began to demand more space, the garden transformed into a sustainable forest that has been growing for over five years in Bolombólo, a town in the Antioquia region, about two hours from Medellín.

Without the plants—and the garden as the center around which the entire project revolves—it would have been nearly impossible to carry out the work we do in the studio, or to offer the workshops we’ve held over the years to raise awareness in others.

I have always conceived the art studio as a space of transformation, where the empirical reveals itself through play and experimentation. A place for trial and error, for expanding ideas, and above all, for encounter.

This project has taught me to value collaborative work and to understand that the synergy of a team is so powerful it transcends the simple sum of individual knowledge—what each member contributes. From this perspective, the studio is no longer defined as a private space, inherent to the artist, but rather as an open space that enables collaboration and fosters the exchange of experiences and knowledge.

It is a living, co-creative place, one that expands and contracts organically in response to the evolving needs of the project, as revealed through the process.

At first, the studio was a physical workspace that included the garden. There, we imagined and shaped the project, planned field trips, studied the botany of the plants, learned to preserve them through herbariums, and sought to express them aesthetically through various techniques and formats such as illustrations and prints.

It was when we began bringing back from the Amazon everything we had produced in that ephemeral workshop we set up in the jungle—working hand in hand with the Huitoto family who welcomed us—that we realized we needed a much larger space to explore the many ways we could exhibit the project. At that point, the studio became a warehouse, allowing us to play with materials and build installations while envisioning how to present the work.

Later, the need arose to go further in understanding the organic chemistry of color. We focused on learning how to formulate pigments, transform them, stabilize them, and diversify their applications. As a result, the concept of the studio began to shift over time toward that of a laboratory—a space where empirical knowledge, grounded in artistic practice, converges with scientific knowledge that draws on both botany and chemistry.

We acquired a vacuum drying oven, a pH meter, several Soxhlet extractors, and other lab equipment and tools. This has enabled us to deepen our understanding of organic pigments, and thus the studio has transformed into what we now call the Color Lab: a space where above all, we value the process.

The power of color lies in its nature as a universal language—it expresses a world in which we all belong. Personally, I believe that if art fails to surprise and inspire others, even a child, then its purpose has been distorted to the point of becoming almost useless. The Color Lab has been essential in allowing us to explore science through play—a place where we can all become children again.

This space has helped us discover new ways to approach the phenomenon of color through both science and art, and in doing so, to generate reflections on nature. What we have learned there has enabled us to raise awareness in others, especially children, through playful workshops that have become a fundamental part of the project.

Through experimentation—and in collaboration with a chemical engineer—the Color Lab has allowed us to make progress in stabilizing pigments: preserving them through the use of different mordants, increasing their resistance to various environmental factors such as oxidation and light, applying them to textiles and natural fibers, and formulating and transforming them into watercolors, crayons, powdered dyes, and more.