The pool as a metaphor and the pool as a multifunctional survival room had haunted him ever since 1996, as mentioned, when we attempted to revive the long-defunct Klaipėda barracks swimming pool, both preserved by lost time and itself preserving a time past, all the way up to The Black Pillow in 2010. Only there, instead of water, he (Valdas Ozarinskas) and Aida Čeponytė filled it with syringes, medical instruments, metal boxes and heaps of other junk brought in by ambulance crews from the Seamen’s Hospital.
Throughout his life, Valdas had a liking for medical instruments, especially surgical ones: for him, the beauty of an object was never dependent on its function. Or rather, the beauty of an object could only be tested by detaching it from its function. Such negated functionality (or functionality relocated into a completely foreign, unrecognisable context) was the aim and content of his explorations. We could call it ‘decontextualising’ or ‘defusing’ an object. This was how the wing of an old glider in an enclosed space became a catapult that propels the imagination into the sky. No wonder some said he was born to be a designer. To hang plaster-cast breaking scissors on the wall in place of a painting could have made him almost happy. Not unlike King Ubu:

Silver applicator wand.
Dilator.
Single-toothed forceps.
Peritoneal retractor.
Shall I continue?

There, in a pool without water, they let loose a gang of actors ‘bandaged’ in strewn-together pieces of ripped white denim – I had never seen theatrical costumes reflect the nature of both the character and the performer so well. Even a cocoon can be malleable, Ozė [Ozarinskas] seemed to be saying. Bandages are a good fit for ‘Fashion Infection’! He had also made hundreds of photographs of the project, now stored away in boxes, which our beloved Let My Name Be Soros Foundation has misplaced irretrievably.

– Rolandas Rastauskas, ‘(Ne)panaudota Lietuvoje’, Nemunas, 2020, No. 6, p. 44.