In the installation entitled DRIVE-THRU, Nadia Markiewicz focuses on the potential inherent in non-normative bodies, as well as their emancipatory and transformative capabilities. The main theme of the show is the real-life story of a couple with disabilities who decided to get married in the Little White Chapel in Las Vegas. They experienced considerable difficulties while getting out of their car before the ceremony. The owner of the chapel noticed this and was inspired to create a chapel where people could get married without stepping out of the car. This brief, ordinary event links the themes that interest Markiewicz: the changes occurring in the world, the emergence of pop-cultural spaces, an autobiographical element – the wedding of her own parents, the spirit of being on the road, the theme of celebrity. Markiewicz builds upon the concept of the misfit used by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson and introduces the figure of a rebel to her narrative. “Not fitting in” turns into a force triggering transformation, but also alludes to a failed romantic relationship of a disabled body and its material surrounding world.
The exhibition flips the current discourse on disability upside down. Markiewicz shines a light on a situation in which the majority of society benefits from a solution created for people with disabilities, emphasizing the liberating power coming from rejecting normative solutions. It thus celebrates the hidden potentials of disability.
text by: Ewelina Muraszkiewicz, translation: Joanna Figiel
