Recently, at the Sydney Tattoo Expo, Joeltron and the First Blood crew set up some suspensions for the crowd. One of those suspensions was this 6pt Antichrist suspension. You can see Joel on the right holding the mic interviewing the suspendee.
Love sometimes warrants sacrifices, and what bigger sacrifice than allowing yourself to be killed to forgive mankind of its sins. Well the folks at #Leeds Airlines decided to recreate that sacrifice in the only way they knew how. By actually crucifying one of their members. Please note this is extremely dangerous and shouldn’t be attempted without proper research and a lot of experience.
Never fight a ground war with Russia in the winter, it can get damn cold up there. Just because it’s cold out doesn’t mean The Sinner Team is slowing down. Here’s a couple of shots of a modified crucifix suspension as well as a video showing off quite a few of the winter suspensions they’ve been up to.
For those keeping track, that’s 2 gilsons in the chest, and 4 8g hooks in the arms.
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The #Leeds Airlines team from St. Petersburg, Russia is best known for their theatrics. Almost all of their suspensions are part of a photoshoot or performance piece, and this one is no different. This crucifix suspension was part of a performance with Prelyudia Evi, which I’m guessing is the name of the band that you can see in some of the photos.
There’s more to see, so keep on reading.
You can see the rest of the photos in their full size in the #Leeds Airlines gallery.
It what appears to be a part of a suspension performance, the Abyss Crew from Russia creates a fantastic looking crucifixion suspension. The first photo in particular is striking as you can almost see the cross that he’s nailed to. The second photo, while not possessing the religious weight of the first, does show a better view of the placement of the hooks.
Ok, so Anna may not actually be a witch, but when you suspend with the #Leeds Suspension Team, you never know what you’re going to end up becoming. The title for this specific piece is “Witch’s Indulgence”.
It seems to have become a tradition that when someone celebrates a birthday around a suspension artist, they end up suspending in an unusual manner by the end of the day. The young woman in the photo below had just turned 18 so as a surprise Arseniy hooked her up in a crucifixion suspension for a photoshoot.
Head on over to the other suspensions gallery to see the rest of the photos from the shoot. Please keep in mind that the rigging used in these photos was chosen specifically for the shoot and is not the typical manner in which suspensions occur.
When one thinks of a crucifixion, the image of Jesus normally pops into their head. Not because of any religious beliefs, but simply because of the association that has been around for centuries. To this day there are still crucifixions being used as a form of execution, most often in countries where religion is tied to those in power. When it comes to suspensions, the crucifix suspension evokes the image of a person being crucified, which inevitably draws comparisons to other crucifixions. We’ve talked before about how suspending can be a spiritual experience, so to say it could have religious significance to some isn’t that much of a leap.
Now when it comes to suspensions as part of a photoshoot, that imagery can be played up, as is the case with these photos sent in by our Russian friend Arseniy. We’ve seen his suspension photoshoots before, and he continues to produce fantastic images. You’ll have to use the clickthrough to see the pictures as there are some naughty bits.
You can check out more photos from the shoot in the suicide suspension gallery, as we don’t have a crucifixion gallery.
I went back to the very last page in the Other Suspensions gallery and I found a set of pictures that I took and submitted myself. I was going to wait and use these as a much later From The Vault entry, however, the recent discussions on modblog about BME’s role as media vs. our “endorsement” of certain things by posting them made this post seem perfectly timed for right now. Plus three years ago to the day, this suspension was mentioned in this post , but I feel these pics and this story are damn worthy of a post all their own!
For one day I stepped out of my usual role as a body piercer and suspension group member and played the role of journalist, taking on the job of documenting (not endorsing) this very unique suspension.
For more pictures and my version of the story, click through.
I first met D (full name withheld and face blurred to protect his privacy) about a year before this foot crucifixion suspension was done. He decided he wanted to suspend shortly after seeing Allen Falkner perform a two point chest suspension on one of his many television appearances. D decided this was something he NEEDED to attempt himself. At the time he was already a senior citizen and he was not a big internet user. The reason I mention this is because having only briefly seen a suspension on tv, he did not fully understand the techniques we commonly use. Instead, he devised his own system based on good old fashioned creativity.
He took two 8″ carbon steel rods (approximately 4 gauge in size) and sharpened one end of each. He used these rods both as the needle and the hook for his suspension. He pierced himself about 3″ deep on each side and then made a rig consisting of small rings which went over the ends of the rods and were connected together with a length of rope. When the rope was pulled tight, these rings became taught and did a fine job of holding the rods in place. To get up, he used the most logical means he could, he stepped off a chair, just the same way someone attempting to hang themselves would. After a good long while he reached up with his arms (which is quite the feat in itself from this sort of suspension) and cut himself down.
Shortly thereafter he got online and found BME. He decided he wanted to attempt a suicide suspension, but realized this was not something he could facilitate himself. He wrote into BME and Shannon referred him to me. When he came to me for the suspension he brought the carbon steel rods and his “rig”. I, of course, opted for the community standard mustad hooks and proper suspension rigging so I could put him up using the most modern techniques and standards of the time.
Some time later he got his first and only piercing, a 4 gauge PA. He also did a few more basic suspensions before coming to me and telling me he had attempted a foot suspension (what is now known as a foot crucifixion suspension, a name I dubbed to describe the fact the hooks went through the foot) but failed to get up. He wanted me to facilitate the next attempt for him. I refused because I did not want to be responsible if something went wrong in a suspension I considered very dangerous for anyone, much less someone of his age.
Some time passed and D contacted me again. He told me flat out he was doing it and would like my help. I once again explained my objections and told him I, as a responsible body piercer and member of the suspension community, couldn’t participate in this. Finally, he asked if I would come by to record the suspension and to call for help in the event that things went bad. I thought about it a bit and as opposed as I was to the idea of the suspension attempt, I felt it would be a huge disservice to D as well as to the suspension community to not have this suspension documented. So I agreed to go and play the role of journalist. I told him I was going to be totally hands off, but I would record the event and be there to help if things did not go his way.
As I mentioned earlier, D was extremely creative with his methods, they were quite crude but also quite clever. He had taken an ice pick and ground the end down to fit inside of the needle, he used this as a needle pusher. On the hooks, which were the mustads I used on him for his suicide suspension, he ground down the ends to make them fit into the needle. If you are familiar with step down external threading or pin tapers, his hooks and needle pusher both worked in a similar fashion to those. He also used a stack of gauze as a stopper for the needle to go into, that combined with his makeshift needle pusher made the fact he was piercing through tough tissue on himself a doable task. This system made piercing and follow through with the hooks as smooth as possible. Like I said, crude but clever.
After the piercing process, he took a moment to gather himself and walked, well more like waddled, on to where he had the pulley set up. He laid down and rigged himself up, while I set up the camcorder and camera. He took a breath and in one continuous motion pulled himself up. With that he had achieved something that, to the best of my knowledge, no one before him nor no one after him had achieved, a true “crucifixion” style suspension. I saw him a few months later and his feet had healed with hardly any scarring. He said “walking was difficult for about a week, but after that everything went back to normal”.
He kept this, as well as his other suspension and piercings hidden from everyone in his life except me and I feel very fortunate to have had a small part in this momentous suspension. It is awe-inspiring to meet someone like D, someone who finds something they NEED to do, purely for themselves and then does it against all odds. I consider D’s story the “Worlds Fastest Indian” for the modified community, and I hope it continues to inspire people to challenge what is deemed “impossible”. While I can’t recommend anyone attempt to recreate this suspension themselves, I also can’t help but respect D for pursuing his dream and doing “the impossible”.
Want to see more pictures from this suspension? Those pictures and countless other groundbreaking, historic pictures are just a BME membership away.
Your Monday morning wake-up comes from Brazil’s favorite son, IAM: elee, who, on the third day, rose. Apparently.
See more in ““Suicide” Suspension“ (Ritual)