This Friday, June 27, 2025, a dozen people left the Lombrive Cave Ariège and closed the first artistic residence in a cave in the world.
“I saw a lot of smile on the exit,” says Jérémy Romanian, director of operations at the Human Adaptation Institute. This Friday, June 27, 2025, ended an unusual adventure: fourteen days, which were spent underground in the absolute darkness of the Lombrive Cave, Ariège, for a mixed of residence and science. A world first called Deep Time II.
At ten o’clock, the operating director got the participants out of their cave and for some of their sleep. Of 10 degrees in the housing, you switch to an average of 30 degrees of this summer day. A real “shock” at the exit: “It is a whole emotion, we had no light, we couldn’t see other people,” says Mélesine Mallender, co -organizer of the residence. “We were a couple to have their heads that turn around. Light, heat and smells, everything is very strong at the exit, it is a meaning.” »
In the end, some will find their family, other crying, an overflow of emotions and already nostalgically for a completed experience. The participants withdraw from the clock and telephone and were without a time sign: “We made bets and I lost. At first I thought we would go out faster, then I was woken up in my tent.”
A timeless world
Like the first edition in 2021, the expedition had a scientific goal. The participants were equipped with “socometers” to find out the interactions between the individual and a “actimeter” for life and sleep. However, this edition is characterized by the presence of ten artists in the Ariège cave. “Some came with concrete projects that they will land afterwards. With several, it was very rich in a benevolent group,” said Mélesine Mallender.
Sébastien Langloš, Toulouse sculptor, went into the cave with 120 kg of earth and precise ideas. “I was fascinated by the arrival in a timeless world,” he says. His recording of the 14 days is very positive, humanly and artistic, especially thanks to the absence of the phone. “The little moments of the day when you are during a break and turn your phone into moments of thinking. It has been a long time ago since it happened to me,” notes the artist.
The residents lived about 1 km from the entrance to the cave, without benchmarks: “I realized that it was difficult to capture the concept of time without a clock. I had to change my way of working.” But even without contact with the outside world, which are cut off by news for two weeks: “We come out and are told about the 12 -day war that it is special,” says the sculptor.
An artistic and human closeness that made it possible to feed the projects of the individual. “Black and silence enable you to get into yourself more intensive reflection and access the truth of what you really want to do,” added the Toulousain.
The data collected is used to compare the two expenses until the complete publication of the results of the first.