Lifesaver #12

The Lifesavers project was conceived by Vladimir Kustov in the early 2000s. One day, his attention was attracted by a German brochure from 1925-26, which provided illustrative instructions on how to rescue drowning people. The drawings in this
manual demonstrated the beauty of the athletic body, the triumph of physical culture, the development and popularization of which was one of the important ideological tasks in building a new state. The drawings in the brochure depicted a wide range of techniques — a variety of grips, each of which was given an individual, complex name. All
These exercises combined to form an exciting performative action, the image of which inspired the artist to shoot. Based on the drawings from the manual, the author created the so—called learning modules — behavioral matrices - thereby transforming the original images in the context of modernity.