Solo exhibition at Case Romane del Celio
Curated by :
Romina Guidelli and Andrea Poleschi
Rome welcomes Lumen ex Terra, the new exhibition project by Helidon Xhixha, curated by Romina Guidelli and Andrea Poleschi, conceived for the extraordinary spaces of the Roman Houses of the Caelian Hill, one of the city's most evocative and historically layered archaeological sites.
From June 11 to September 27, 2026, a selection of works inhabits the underground spaces, creating a dialogue between contemporary sculpture and ancient architecture through a journey conceived as a progressive exploration of space.
The title itself encapsulates the essence of the project: a light emerging from the depths, passing through matter and restoring memory. Sculpture is no longer merely form, but experience. It does not represent; it transforms. It does not impose itself upon space; it reveals it.
A JOURNEY THROUGH THE UNDERGROUND DIMENSION
The exhibition unfolds as a sequence of encounters, where each work engages in dialogue with the space that hosts it. Monumental stainless-steel sculptures such as Torso d’Acciaio, Teuta, and Dea d’Acciaio enter the ancient architecture as almost archetypal presences, while works such as Inner Peace, Reflection, and Harmony of Light activate a more intimate and perceptual dimension.
More essential and vertical interventions, such as Sonda di Luce, Getto di Luce, and Sostegno di Luce, guide the visitor’s gaze and movement, creating a visual rhythm that accompanies the passage through the underground environments.
Alongside these works, forms such as Iceberg and its variations introduce a tension between matter and fragment, solidity and dissolution.
MATTER: STEEL AND LIGHT
Xhixha’s works, primarily created in mirror-polished stainless steel, are distinguished by their ability to transform matter into a reflective and dynamic surface.
Metal is no longer merely a structural element; it becomes an optical device that absorbs space and returns it transformed. In some works, the presence of polished bronze introduces a material variation that further amplifies the dialogue between light, density, and reflection.
SCULPTURE AS A PERCEPTUAL DEVICE
Xhixha’s sculptures do not simply occupy space; they activate it.
Their reflective surfaces absorb and return the surrounding environment, incorporating frescoes, walls, and architectural elements into a dynamic system of constantly changing images.
Reflection thus becomes both a perceptual and conceptual device: not a simple reproduction of reality, but a process of amplification and reinterpretation of the visible.
THE ROMAN HOUSES OF THE CAELIAN HILL
Located on the Caelian Hill, just a short walk from the Basilica of Saints John and Paul, the Roman Houses of the Caelian Hill represent one of Rome’s most fascinating and unconventional archaeological complexes.
The site preserves underground spaces belonging to different phases of habitation, dating from the 2nd to the 4th century CE. Originally imperial-era domus, these residences evolved over time, expanding and assuming new functions.
Frescoes, masonry, and layered architectural structures recount centuries of history, revealing a complex system of underground spaces where domestic life, memory, and transformation coexist.
Buried over the centuries following the construction of the basilica above, these environments have been remarkably preserved, offering today an immersive and suspended experience in which time seems to accumulate in layers and re-emerge.
It is precisely this subterranean, complex, and perceptually rich nature that makes the Roman Houses of the Caelian Hill an ideal context for Helidon Xhixha’s work, where the dialogue between light, space, and memory finds one of its most profound expressions.
DIALOGUE WITH THE ROMAN HOUSES OF THE CAELIAN HILL
Within the Roman Houses of the Caelian Hill, where architecture preserves traces of domestic life between the Imperial Age and Late Antiquity, and where frescoes and masonry tell the story of centuries of stratification, Xhixha’s work enters as an active element.
The reflective surfaces amplify the illusionistic dimension already inherent in the painted environments, incorporating the archaeological space and returning it in a dynamic, multiplied, and unstable form. The result is a layered perceptual field in which past and present coexist and continuously transform one another.
The visitor becomes an integral part of the artwork: movement activates vision and constantly alters perception, generating an experience that is always different and never definitive.