"Secret Mall Apartment," a Protest for Place

Summary

In 2003, a group of Rhode Island artists created a secret living space within a busy shopping mall and lived there off and on, undetected, for about four years. Why? The new documentary Secret Mall Apartment, now in select theaters nationwide, tells the story of eight Providence-based artists who, although they periodically hint at their left-leaning politics, admirably dedicate their time and skills to projects paying tribute to the first-responder firemen who perished on 9/11, the victims of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and sick children in hospitals. It’s touching. You root for them. Oh, and they live in their local mall. Directed by Jeremy Workman and produced by actor Jesse Eisenberg, the documentary features grainy 2000s cell-phone camera footage of the cast of characters—all artists but also intimate friends—as well as modern-day interviews about their time living in the mall. The ringleader is Michael Townsend, who is fifty-four now and hatched the mall apartment project in his early thirties. When the Providence Place Mall was under construction, one of Townsend’s friends noticed that there was an odd space that didn’t seem to have a dedicated purpose. Townsend took the lead on furnishing the space with goods from the Salvation Army and other thrift stores. Townsend said in an interview, “It was windowless, lifeless concrete, very industrial, not designed to be comfortable in any way—that said, myself and my comrades are all repeat offenders of moving into mill spaces that are big and industrial and making them into our homes—that’s our whole bag.” The original plan was to stay a week. The latest essay every day. “It trains you to be in a mindset that you have a sort of role as steward of spaces that you will temporarily make something different and uniquely beautiful, and just as easily remove it,” he added. The artists’ squatting was a statement. They hated the mall. By “living” there, without permission or anyone even noticing (the logistics of their ...