The Approach Of Past by Vladimir Kustov is devoted to one of the most tragic episodes of the defense of Leningrad - the battles for Sinyavino Heights.

Finding himself in the places of military glory the artist was struck by the memorial nature of the landscape. Sinyavino Heights became a huge mass grave and a place of memory. Vladimir Kustov approaches the past in three stages. The first stage is a common plan - panoramas. His panoramic photographs are truly anonymous, like tens of thousands of missing soldiers who were lost here. The second more detailed approach contains the signs of war. A cigarette case, a pot, a flask, a watch, a herbal cake, a splinter of an explosive shell are the items as if cut out from the flow of time. The third approach is the textures made by the artist using the macrography. The textures of war are earth, gunpowder, metal, tobacco, bread, ashes, bandages and salt. These textures surround people, nourish them, protect, shroud and bury them in the war.