LAAMB
Dakar, Senegal. Ongoing.
Before the fight, there is prayer. Before prayer, there are days of ritual preparation - herbs, incantations, the counsel of a marabout whose spiritual authority can determine whether a man steps into the arena at all. Laamb wrestling is Senegal's national sport, but to call it sport is to miss what it actually is: a living theology of masculine becoming, enacted in sand and sweat.
I went looking for competition. What I found was a culture that still knows how to make men - through suffering, through mentorship, through public ordeal witnessed by a community that holds the result as sacred. These photographs are from inside that world.
© Dean Bradshaw 2026