Ola Lewczyk, Cam Peeters
Temple of Janus| 05.10.-11.10.2026
Cam Peeters (BE) and Ola Lewczyk (PL) present Temple of Janus. The exhibition echoes
then embodies a multi-sensorial experiential walk, evoking the central concept of pilgrimage and
its effect on our senses. An interplay of light, smell and sound, symbolism and reverence. The
audience enter a semi-sacred space. An imagined temple become real. Drawing influence from
old Roman cult practices, informed by a personal mythologised understanding of the artists’
surroundings, Temple of Janus is an opening into a world beyond.
Temple of Janus’ foundations lie with a pilgrimage, 13 days of walking, undertaken in
August 2025. From the Adriatic Sea to Rome, we passed along ancient trails, animal tracks and
Christian pilgrimage traditions, crossing the Apennines and passing through the four Holy Doors
in Rome and the Vatican, in the midst of the summer heat, during the religious celebrations.
During weeks of walking, movement became a method of thinking: navigating strange terrain,
crossing through valleys, mountains and rivers, up and down again, repeating daily rituals, and
constantly reorienting ourselves in relation to landscape, sunlight, time, and one another.
The project showcases a symbolic architecture structured around acts of crossing.
Numerical symbolism, drawn from the pilgrimage itself, functions as an underlying compositional
logic. Recurring symbols and the duo cross and spiral evoke the rhythms of walking, counting,
ritual. These symbols connect bodily movement, spatial mapping and mythologised meaning.
The lost temple of Janus is our speculative building site. Janus, the Roman god of thresholds
and time, presides over moments of transition. Looking simultaneously forwards and
backwards, he guards these liminal spaces. His temple becomes a way of thinking about
crossings. This ancient creature places one leg in past and future, stability and instability,
stagnation and creation. When his doors open, it will all change. The ringing of bells. The thick
smoke of herbs and resin. The resonance of clay. The flickering of a flame on the wall. Which
signifiers do we use to mark the boundaries between ourselves and the world? Temple of Janus
searches for a personal language of symbols, exploring heights, depths and how we slowly walk
from one to the other. The first iteration of Temple of Janus was presented in Brussels in July
2026. Set in St. Souci, a gallery space evoking an Roman bath house with it’s mosaic floors and
arched ceilings.
At Stroboskop, we present a site-specific adaptation that responds to the scale,
materiality and hidden corners of the gallery. From the vastness of the landscape to the intimacy
of the interior, recalling this secret/sacred liminal space, from the outer world to the inner one.
We met in 2021, in London, during our time studying at Goldsmiths University. Coming from
different places and practices, our collaborative work has been marked by small, repeated
crossings over those boundaries between the natural and modern world, working with traditional
crafting and the electronic, building on the idea of a personalised language and methods that
respond to our need for a new sacred space.