IN THE LOCKER ROOM Complexe sportif d'Evere, 2022 · & Backstage, Charleroi 2026 Two fighters. Two moments. One silence. Nabil Lahouari, hooded, hands folded in bandaged prayer, alone in his locker room in Evere before stepping into the ring. Layered beneath and above him — Ryad Merhy, WBC Bridgerweight World Champion, in the same posture of concentrated solitude before his own title fight in Charleroi. They never shared a locker room. But in this image, they share the same breath before the storm — the same fear, the same focus, the same humanity that no highlight reel ever shows. This work carries a particular history. An earlier edition of Nabil's portrait — a single, unmixed photograph — was minted and sold, and the proceeds financed my travel to cover Ryad Merhy's world championship fight. That fight produced the second layer of this image. In the Locker Room is therefore not just a composition — it is a chain of events, a testimony to what one photograph can set in motion. Two men who never met, bound forever in a single frame.