With the arrival of spring, I am taken aback by the demon of cleanliness. Like every year I spend a few days going through cupboards and drawers, selecting, throwing away, then going wild with the mop, repairing wall cavities, cleaning. I'm not alone in this. What drives us?

Well, the big clean-up after winter is an atavistic need. In every culture, Primavera (spelled with a capital or small letter) awakens from its winter slumber and prompts action. Both nature and people. Therefore, a thorough clearing out of the farmyard was treated (and in some communities the present tense must be used) in a similar way to the drowning or burning of Madder (again spelled with a capital or small letter, depending on whether it is a goddess or a dummy): as an act of rebirth. To make room for new life, a sacrifice must be made. Once - a mortal one. A cruel solution, but considered necessary.

But civilised people feel resistance to such barbarism. Replacement forms have long since been found. For example, in the form of symbolic rituals, which have become the foundation of art.

SIGN UP TO OUR PAGE By the way: the anniversary of the premiere of "The Rite of Spring" with music by Igor Stravinsky and choreography by Václav Nijinsky is coming up. It was in Paris 110 years ago, on 29 May 1913 to be exact, and the event has gone down in history as one of the greatest musical and ballet scandals. Scholars believe that it was no coincidence that this performance preceded the first world conflict, the consequences of which are still being felt today. Spring always stimulates rebellious moods, and the great artists had a part in this dictated by instinct.

That war turned the political, geographical, social and moral order upside down. It could be said that Poland was among the beneficiaries of this four-year hurricane of history. As we know, the Compiègne truce did not at all mean peace on the Old Continent, much less guarantee our security or permanent borders. But that is another story altogether.

Today, I am talking about the spring cleaning frenzy, which, as has been said, is linked to destruction, removal and annihilation. Except that the place of the victim in the form of the fair maiden from "The Rite of Spring" is taken by objects.

Our attitude to what we use every day has changed. We throw away objects that are objectively still usable. However, over the years, they fall lower and lower in the household hierarchy, to an increasingly cluttered cellar or garage. Or disappearing into the depths of suitcases and boxes that we never look into. Sometimes - in a dramatic gesture of destruction - someone decides: we put the fire on. And if we don't have a fireplace or a bonfire in a field, a simpler solution: the rubbish dump.

Objects that are still fit for something will certainly be fished out by the rubbish bin searchers. And what to do with pre-worn electronic equipment? The kind that nobody makes spare parts for any more? In Africa, they strip all the vital parts from these corpses and make use of them. With us, technical carcasses end up on their death piles for all time, with no chance of even partial disposal.

Something that has lost the glitter of newness does not deserve attention. The new will come. This new pushes itself before our eyes and ears in every medium, with every online operation. Marian and Barbara - that already proverbial (persistent advertising also becomes proverbial at times) couple of geeky consumers of electronic novelties - pop up like devils out of a box, encouraging us to buy at a promotional price. Repair shops have gone bust; it's cheaper to buy new than to repair the old. Old? Just last year's. Or without a new, completely unnecessary feature.

At the same time, environmental hypocrites are calling for saving the Earth by, for example, reducing meat consumption. Who dares to speak out against the compulsive introduction of technological blockbusters for ever more money (virtual, of course)?

Who will whisper a word against the meetings of geniuses in Davos, so alarmed by the poisoning of the globe, that they rush to their world forum by the fastest possible means of transport, emitting mass quantities of exhaust fumes poisoning the ecosystem with greenhouse gases. And talk, talk, talk, but none of the participants will switch to a bicycle.

Bicycles have also gone mad. I mean, not the unicycles themselves, but their manufacturers. Prices are soaring like jets. Apparently there is a reason: from the quality of the tyres to the revolutionary design. Plus all the accessories and the outfit, colour-coordinated with the vehicle's paintwork. That's the only way you'll be trendy. Just cycling doesn't matter.

Obviously, the old bike is going to rubbish. Like anything that smacks of the past, if only counted in months.

And I was moved by an exhibition at the capital's Kordegarda gallery, entitled ' Remembrance 1943' (until 7 May). It evokes memory - of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. With what? With things. In the showcases, like priceless excavations, traces of the existence of people deprived of a future, but still attached to the rituals of civilisation, have been deposited.

These are things that are touchingly cheap, yet beautiful in their unpretentious utility. Enamelled buckets, ladles, cups. Rusty pitchforks, shovels, the skeletons of prams. And wine glasses - how did they survive?

These are all mediocre, meagre objects, but essential. Without them, man recedes into prehistory. Hence the value of these objects - not their exquisite design, but their witness to everyday needs. As the show makes clear, what is essential is not what dazzles with beauty, but what helps to live.

Modern defenders of the "heart" of the Earth call for a limitation of possessions to one hundred items. Please show me an upper or even middle class person who respects this! And how does this pipe dream stack up against frenzied, social engineering-driven consumption?

For now - while the spring rush of tidying up smoulders within us - let's do a little examination, not of conscience, but of things. Why do we need so many of them?

– Monika Małkowska
– Translated by Tomasz Krzyżanowski

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists

The exhibition 'Remembrance 1943' can be seen at the Kordegarda gallery in Warsaw, until 7 May 2023.