Correspondências

Laboratório da Cave is a group of artists, enthusiasts, and researchers, dedicated to the practice and study of 16mm, super8, and other small-gauge films. The collective was formed in 2022 in Lisbon and it has grown organically since then as they have agreed, since the beginning, to leave the collective open and non-hierarchical like a living body. Laboratório da Cave was founded after an artistic residency dedicated to practices of filmmaking and development in 16mm film with ecological and artisanal processes and a deep do-it-together ethos. 

Moved by this transformative burst of inspiration, by the desire to keep practicing what they had learned during the immersive 16mm residency, and by the realization that there wasn’t any artist-run laboratory in Lisbon despite the existence of a growing number of analog filmmakers, they decided to gather informally to share knowledge and resources and to instigate the production, experimentation, and diffusion of a cinematographic culture based on materiality and tactility. By sharing their knowledge, time, resources, networks, and equipment, the collective is also trying to make this medium more accessible to everyone and to produce films in a manner that is more collaborative and, thus, more aligned with the do-it-together ethos that first inspired them. The name of the collective means “Basement Lab” and it was derived, rather pragmatically, from the fact that the first laboratory they occupied in Lisbon was an abandoned photography lab on the -3 floor of the basement of a university. They remain, to this day, a collective without a fixed lab or address and they are more and more learning to enjoy and thrive in the itinerant and organic nature of our photo-alchemical adventures.

Laboratório da Cave is composed of more than 30 people, who decided to work in sub-divided working groups that are organized organically according to the interests of each member. The "Correspondências" project was one of such working groups built around the shared interest of working collectively in a sort of cadavre exquis that questioned the established hierarchies of sound and image and that played around with ideas such as synesthesia, correspondence, and blind dating. Laboratório da Cave’s previous filmography and bibliography include a body of work produced around the same time and the same idea of playing around with the caffenol developing process, the reversal process, and experimenting with putting together a fanzine - called “Bitola” - that details the process as a kind of logbook whilst trying to finally fixate the correct recipe of the caffenol method they had originally used at the artistic residency. This body of work doesn’t exactly have a name and it was presented always as a work in progress in different venues in Lisbon. These first and founding activities of the collective have in a very natural and spontaneous way contributed to guiding our modus operandi since then. 

They have a hard time defining themselves according to any fixed set of rules or principles but, so far, they could summarize their way of working according to the following motivations: Doing-it-together / Learning by doing / Sharing reels and sharing meals / No specialisms or hierarchies of expertise, learning together with no shame of asking questions and no fear of making mistakes / Improvising and experimenting, a lot / Sharing resources - lending a hand, a tank or a camera, or anything else, every time it’s possible - and responsibilities / Working collaboratively on collective projects and working collectively on individual projects / Selling zines to pay for film, chemistry, or festival submission fees / Laughing a lot, dancing often, and eating well / Growing, doing, and playing together. Life is serious enough as it is.