Description
JUGAAR: A Pakistani Guide to Aspirational Living
Matthieu Paley, Lukas Birk, Zarmeene Shah
COMING IN JUNE
Text in English & Urdu / 16 × 22 cm /264 pages
Hard cover / Edition of 500
Produced in Karachi, Pakistan
Co-Published with Folio Books Lahore
(locally available for Rs.7500)
Jugaar, explores Pakistan’s vivid tradition of aspirational montage photography, made in makeshift studios at religious festivals and fun fairs. Using collaged backdrops of film posters, luxury interiors, vehicles, weapons, flowers, and religious symbols, photographers transform clients into heroes, lovers, migrants, celebrities, and men of means, often in minutes.
Based on material collected by National Geographic photographer Matthieu Paley, with text by Lukas Birk and Zarmeene Shah, the book offers a rare in-depth view into a popular photographic practice that has largely remained outside official histories. Rooted in jugaar (Urdu: جگاڑ), the culture of inventive workarounds, these images go beyond portraiture, they reveal a grassroots visual language of ambition, longing, performance, and creative survival.
The project began in Sehwan Sharif, Sindh, during the Urs of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, where temporary studios appear alongside the pilgrimage. At the centre is the work of itinerant photographers such as Zahid and Zeeshan, a father–son team producing “face-join” fantasies on a laptop and printer, a living archive of public dreams shared across Pakistan’s festival circuit.
