Gijs Van Vaerenbergh transforms an archaeological ruin in Italy

A reinterpretation of an archaeological ruin through inversion and suspension

For the Herakleia Archaeological Park in Policoro (Matera, southern Italy), Belgian artist duo Gijs Van Vaerenbergh created the site-specific installation Inverse Ruin. This historic site was once home to a temple dedicated to Dionysus (433–432 BC), but today only the foundations remain visible. Starting from these archaeological traces, the artists reimagine the vanished temple — not through reconstruction, but through a radical, and literal, inversion.

Whereas decay usually occurs from top to bottom, Inverse Ruin deliberately reverses this process. The roof, upper parts of the walls and fragments of the columns are made visible again, while the original remains remain untouched on the ground. Visitors walk beneath an artificial ruin suspended within a steel structure and experience the monument from an inverted perspective.

With this intervention, Gijs Van Vaerenbergh reshape our view of ancient ruins. The Greek temple is an iconic form at the foundation of Western architectural culture. Because it is known today mainly through ruins, the ruin itself has acquired an almost mythical status. Inverse Ruin critically engages with this tradition. The installation evokes the original proportions and formal values of the Doric temple while inviting reflection on how we perceive and interpret ruins today.

Measuring 35 metres long, 17 metres wide and 12 metres high, the work follows the scale and geometry of the original temple. A metal support structure carries the floating volume. The sculptural elements are executed in lime mortar, creating a subtle bridge between historical material references and contemporary construction techniques.

The installation is characterised by a visible tension between reality and fiction, materiality and abstraction, content and structure. A careful composition of larger and smaller fragments creates a fractured rhythm and complex spatial volumes. The temple is dismantled, fragmented and redrawn. Architectural lines, material presence and the use of colour are balanced, creating a new spatial poetics with fragmented sightlines and whimsical silhouettes against the sky.

Inverse Ruin engages in a dynamic relationship with the surrounding landscape. The work constantly changes depending on the visitor’s viewpoint. By reconstructing the monument according to altered physical rules — like a floating body that seems to defy gravity — the artists not only reinterpret the ancient temple, but also question our cultural conceptions of the logic and aesthetics of the contemporary ruin.

GIJS VAN VAERENBERGH

Gijs Van Vaerenbergh is an artistic practice founded by Pieterjan Gijs (°1983, Belgium) and Arnout Van Vaerenbergh(°1983, Belgium). Their work is situated at the intersection of art, architecture and landscape, and manifests itself in public artworks, site-specific installations and landscape interventions.

Combining technical and theoretical architectural knowledge with an experimental artistic attitude, they deliberately enter the field of visual art. Although their work is architectural in nature, it often takes on a monumental, sculptural and autonomous character. Rather than leaving architecture behind, they seek friction within the discipline itself.

Because their work is fundamentally spatial, the relationship with the viewer is central. Physical experience and interaction with the environment are essential parts of their practice. By appropriating artistic strategies, they consciously break disciplinary boundaries and question the programmatic and utilitarian assumptions of architecture.

SIRIS

Inverse Ruin is part of Siris, an artistic enrichment project for the Herakleia Archaeological Park in Policoro, curated by studiostudio. The project includes three artworks:

Inverse Ruin by Gijs Van Vaerenbergh (BE)
Chora, a sculptural trail by Selva Aparicio (ES)
Arbosonica, a sound work by Max Magaldi (IT), with original contributions by poet Claudia Fabris and musician Daniela Pes

Siris aims to introduce the public to the archaeological site in a new way through contemporary art interventions that evoke the uniqueness of the Archaic Temple, the Sanctuary of Demeter and the spiritual value of the surrounding landscape. The project offers visitors a layered narrative that dialogues with historical artefacts and with the landscape, as well as the anthropological and social forces that have shaped the site’s identity.

Antonio Oriente, artistic director of the Siris studiostudio project, explains:

“Besides their original interpretation of volume and the sharp contrast between the precise geometry of the metal structure and the chaotic explosion of the ruin, the inversion of material presence is particularly intelligent. It opens the visual space for the archaeological remains while guaranteeing the complete reversibility of the intervention.
The proposed forms evoke a sense of incompleteness and the fragility of time — neither erased by restoration, which offers an illusion of the past, nor by reconstruction, which creates an illusion of the present. The work introduces a new inhabitant to the Park: at once foreign and its own, gone and alive, present in the same place and time.”