Marwencol

After suffering a traumatic brain injury, Mark Hogencamp turned to toys to cope. Building a model of a Second World War-era town in his backyard, full of dolls with detailed backstories that often stood for counterparts in his personal life, he gradually recovered his memory and forged a new life. This documentary explores his elaborate world, made in 1:6 scale, querying whether Mark’s project is best understood as art, therapy, or something else entirely.

Viewed in the long history of figurines—small scale representations that play diverse roles in many cultures—Marwencol raises provocative questions about how miniature worlds equip us to come to terms with histories big and small. Toy soldiers, for example, have long advanced the cause of war. What can we learn from their reuse in a project of creative healing? And what light can Mark’s project shed on the practices of projection, resemblance, and survival that have governed the making of figural objects like votives and grave goods in art history? Writing about the magic of toys, German critic Theodor Adorno argued that “the unreality of games gives notice that reality is not yet real.” Marwencol shows the power of figurines to call ‘reality’ into question and to bring new realities to life.

Luke Fidler, Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Southern California and Society for the Humanities Fellow, will introduce the film, which is presented in conjunction with the Society for the Humanities focal theme: Scale.

Free admission! Sponsored by the Society for the Humanities.

Part of our "Scale on Screen" series. Courtesy of Cinema Guild.