Born 1983, Lahore, Pakistan
Lives and works in Lahore

Fusing photographs and digitally animated imagery, Haider Ali Jan's panoramas allude to the contradictions inherent in political rhetoric and conventions of belief. Jan grew up in the old city of Lahore, which forms the backdrop of his images. Jan comes from a Shiite family, and several of his works have been composed around Shiite ritual, particularly the public performance of religious customs and ceremony in Lahore. The ritual associated with the Mourning of Muharram is a public one, and Jan describes it as 'both routine and larger than life', a kind of 'carnival where everything is exaggerated and everyone is involved in some sort of performance'. 'Laughing series' 2008 shows the streets lined with locals waiting for the sacred coffin to be carried past, but recognises the irony of the spectacle in which participants waiting for hours to view a coffin that is in reality empty. The same laughing figures appear in Let's walk 2009, a reflection on good and evil in relation to the perception of martyrdom.