Mark Hogancamp was the victim of a brutal hate crime in 2000. Attacked by five men outside a bar in Kingston, NY, for his love of cross-dressing, he was left for dead, spent nine days in a coma and almost two months in the hospital with irreversible brain damage and partial amnesia.
Unable to afford therapy, he created Marwencol in the safety of his own garden during his rehabilitation for the adventures of his alter ego, Captain Hogie, an American aviator. It is loosely a miniature fictional Belgian town (1:6 scale) set in World War II, named after a combination of his name, bartender Wendy and neighbor Colleen's. He meticulously dresses, stages, and lights the hundreds of scenarios to be photographed himself, working through the rage and fear of the brutality of men, in a safe haven populated with strong women.
The work captured the eye of photographer David Naugle, was published in Esopus, exhibited by White Columns (2006), inspired Jeff Malmberg to make a documentary film called Marwencol (2010), and Robert Zemeckis to make a drama called Welcome to Marwen (2018).
The video was from the exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum in New York in 2021.