Annabel Elgar: Birds Fly Low

HAPAX Living Room Residency

24th September - 10th October 2026

Annabel Elgar's series 'Birds Fly Low' reconstructs the life of K.V.M., the owner of a box of sewing items bought at an online auction, whose photographs and keepsakes offer traces of a story. Hidden beneath a mass of threads was a pamphlet with makeshift instructions for making a spy balloon, alongside notes, blurred photographs, a defaced family portrait, and faded receipts from a store in Cromarty, Scotland. Other clues included a prescription for Thorazine, first administered in the 1950s to treat anxiety, psychosis and agoraphobia.

Elgar traced the airfield at Evanton, near Cromarty, to a launch site for Project Genetrix, a 1950s US programme gathering Cold War intelligence. Surveillance balloons, disguised as weather devices, flew over China, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, with over one hundred launched from Evanton in 1956.

Elgar could discover no further details about K.V.M. Were they housebound by illness, building a spy balloon to explore beyond the limits of home? Or an amateur enthusiast with speculative knowledge of Project Genetrix? This fragile archive of balloon-borne images may hold a clue. 'Birds Fly Low', its title taken from a note within the box, retells this story decades later. With images from this project previously featured in HAPAX Issue 7, Elgar now transforms the HAPAX Living Room project space into a site of fantasy and reimagining, weaving found objects and imagery into the installation.

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Annabel Elgar is a London-based photographic artist. She was one of eight nominees for the inaugural Prix Elysée with her series 'Cheating the Moon', shown at the Musée de L'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland. Her work has featured in exhibitions in Europe, North America and Asia , including ‘Theatres of the Real’, FotoMuseum Antwerp, Belgium; ‘New Photography in Britain’, Galleria Civica di Modena, Italy, & ‘Contemporary Photography from north-west Europe’, Fondazione Fotografia Modena, Italy. She has also shown in ‘Photography is Magic’, Aperture, New York, curated by Charlotte Cotton, & has had solo & two person shows at the Wapping Project, London; Metronom, Italy; Zephyr Raum für Fotografie, Germany; Detroit MONA, USA, & Sweet Briar College, USA, amongst others. 'Noon in the Desert', her photo dummy book about the nuclear weapons test site in Nevada was shortlisted for the Arles Dummy Book Award & the Istanbul Photo Festival Dummy Book Award. Elgar will be showing new work at Metronom, Modena, Italy, in 2027.

HAPAX is co-directed by Christiane Monarchi and Gordon MacDonald. We publish HAPAX Magazine, which takes its name from the literary term ‘hapax legomenon’ describing something unique, new and ‘said only once’. We commission artists and curators to produce new photographic features which we share only in the pages of the publication and not on the internet. Proceeds from sales of magazines are reinvested into future publishing commissions, to support photographic projects and the creative professionals making them.

HAPAX Living Room is dedicated to showing new or experimental forms of lens-based art in the living room of our office, part of the creative spaces of Empress Studios, in Earls Court, London. For more information and details on upcoming exhibitions, how to visit us, propose a project or take part in an event, please look out for announcements on our site: hapaxmagazine.com

Opening event for ‘Birds Fly Low’:
24th September 18:00 - 20:00

Exhibition viewing times:
25th - 27th Sept 12 - 4pm
1st - 4th October 12 - 4 pm
8th - 10th October 12 - 4pm and for an appointment outside of these times please email editors@hapaxmagazine.com

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HAPAX Magazine is co-directed by Christiane Monarchi and Gordon MacDonald. HAPAX Magazine takes its name from the literary term ‘hapax legomenon’ describing something unique, new and ‘said only once’. Twice a year, HAPAX commissions artists and curators to produce new photographic projects which are shared only in the pages of the publication and not on the internet. Proceeds from sales of magazines are reinvested into future publishing commissions, to support photographic projects and the creative professionals making them.

For more information, images or to arrange an interview or appointment with the artist, please contact: editors@hapaxmagazine.com.