Sarah Pickering : Vanishing Act

20th April - 18th May, 2026

HAPAX welcomes Sarah Pickering for a residency at HAPAX Living Room, our West London space dedicated to showing new or experimental forms of lens-based art

Sarah Pickering explores the home as a site where the mundane and the supernatural collide, and absence is made visible. In a new series of photographic prints, sound and video work, Pickering investigates the intersection of domesticity, science, and the paranormal, rooted in her formative memories of the story of the Enfield Poltergeist, and the legacy of a female magician, Fay Presto.

Rather than an exercise in nostalgia, the artworks are an exploration of how belief is staged and formed. Utilising a range of analogue and digital processes including darkroom photography, X-rays, and Kirlian aura imaging; manipulated cutlery and bent metal offer genuine evidence of the Enfield Poltergeist, and illusion is investigated through the props and garments of actual magicians.

On show at HAPAX Living Room are extracts from two new bodies of work The Reveal and Apport, linked by the idea of belief, illusion, perception and magic. The installation is configured around a domestic theme in the project space - a first-floor Victorian Flat conversion in West Brompton near Kensington Olympia in London. 15 minutes’ walk away from the Society for Psychical Research (SPR).

Location: HAPAX Living Room, 17 Empress Place, London SW6 1TT

Opening: 1st May, 18:00 - 20:30
Please join us for the opening celebration of Sarah Pickering’s exhibition in the Living Room.

Exhibition viewing times:

2nd-3rd May 12:00 - 16:00 open
5th - 8th May by appointment. Please email editors@hapaxmagazine.com to arrange a viewing time
9th - 10th May 12:00 - 16:00 open
11th- 18th May 12:00 - 16:00 open and by appointment outside of these times

Special events:
Two special evening events will be announced soon.
Please follow us on instagram and join our mailing list to receive updates.

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Sarah Pickering is a re-emerging artist, who has reconnected with the magic of a creative practice following a challenging parenting journey. Pickering balances the often-invisible labour of caregiving, making a living and the privilege of making art. Her return is a frank acknowledgment of the "middle-age" vanishing act—navigating the unique invisibility of the maturing woman and the sensory shifts of a neurodivergent mind.

A longstanding theme for Pickering is the use of photography and related media to explore themes of falsity and deception through collaborations with other professions, including scientists, magicians, and forensic experts. Her interests are rooted in true stories, the unravelling of hierarchies and representations of social class. She treats belief as a core component of making art. Her recent work expands these inquiries into the realms of the paranormal, illusion, perception, and magic.

Pickering’s work has been exhibited in the UK and internationally and is included in major collections including LACMA; Brooklyn Museum of Art; J. Paul Getty Museum; Carnegie Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts Houston; and the V&A. Pickering has presented papers at international conferences and has been featured on BBC radio and television. Her monograph Explosions, Fires & Public Order is published by Aperture and MoCP, Chicago. Her first published text, On Two Pickpockets – Retouch Real with Some Real will be published later this year as a chapter in Coming to Terms with Robert Bresson (2026) Manchester University Press ed Jonathan Hourigan. Sarah Pickering is an Associate Professor at the Slade School of Fine Art. sarahpickering.co.uk

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.

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 ‍

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

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