This entry is from a photo-essay I am working on titled “Names in the sand”. It is part of a piece of work that seeks to trace the identities and lives of modern day Laamb wrestlers, and how they navigate their ideas on modernity with the once preparatory exercise of war among the warrior classes of the Serer people. Among many things this piece of work also hopes to draw out some of the reasons why unlike many war rituals that have been long buried Laamb remains even more popular and is championed as a national sport among the senegaleese and Gambians
Ahmed is an emerging artist, working primarily in medium format and 35mm film. He is a self-taught photographer, drawn to the multiplicity of shifting identities in the context of culture, religion and sexuality in West-Africa. Through his works Ahmed hopes to capture the subtle aspects of breaking changes that shackle and liberate us in a sea of re-definitions propelled by both globalization and wishful emancipation.
