Sixteen years ago, Mark Hogancamp was attacked outside a bar in Kingston, NY. After coming out of a coma, Hogancamp created his own recovery therapy in his backyard — a miniature Belgian WWII town called Marwencol where Hogancamp can work on his dexterity and on his imagination. His book, Welcome to Marwencol, details Hogancamp’s story of his attack, his recovery, and his therapy-as-art project. It also showcases the photographs of Marwencol that he has taken
Mark Hogancamp leads a double life. In Marwencol, Hogancamp is a WWII fighter pilot, an owner of a successful bar and married to a beautiful woman named Anna. He also happens to be only 12 inches high and made of plastic. In Kingston, New York—the real world—Hogancamp lives alone in a crowded trailer, devoting much of his time to building, photographing and documenting the lives of those in Marwencol—a fictitious world of Hogancamp’s creation.
As a way to cope with his new life after an attack, Mark Hogancamp built a Nazi-besieged, World War II era town in his backyard at 1/6th scale. He populated the model town with miniature alter egos of him and his friends. Each one is a personality in his
In a documentary released last year and out this week on DVD, entitled Marwencol, Malmberg takes audiences inside Hogancamp’s fictional city, his real life and his struggle with public recognition after his photographs started appearing in New York galleries.
