The Political Power of a Pile of Stuff

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It’s alive!

The seemingly passive pile of trash is, in fact, full of life. It undergoes constant biological, chemical, and physical processes. It rots but also grows. Fumes of decay and spores of emerging life spread through the air. Meanwhile, new forms appear, layering themselves on top of one another. The pile turns into a kind of nest for queer forms of life.

Anti-fascist power of a pile of things

The pile, as an accumulation of things without order, carries a unique meaning.

It is non-hierarchical: the position of objects—bottom, middle, or top—is unintentional and without significance. The pile lacks an organizing principle, a logic that would discriminate one type of thing over another and structure them into a hierarchy.

Instead, things melt, leak, and weave into one another. As a result, it destabilizes boundaries and categories. The pile refuses to be put into pure identities or categories. Rather, it encourages “unclean” relations between forms.

Art of hoarding

In her lecture on hoarders, Jane Bennett speaks about their special relationship with their collections.

There is no order, control, or separation. Instead, they merge with the pile, becoming just another part of it. The objects are perceived not as external possessions, but as extensions of themselves. Similarly, in the painting, the human body becomes just one more element within the pile.

Bennett is interested not in the pathological diagnosis of hoarding — a human-centered perspective — but rather in an object-oriented one. The objects themselves seem to exert power over the hoarders. They seduce them, call to them, demand to be picked up, taken home, and incorporated into everyday life.

In this sense, Bartosz, Pille-Riin, and Paweł are hoarders: rare individuals with an intense sensitivity to the allure of things — especially materials others perceive as trash or even disgusting. They are able to perceive beauty, meaning, and vitality where others cannot.

Michał Rutz