In the 80s and 90s, you could find so many different stores at a local mall. But what about somewhere to live? That's a little harder to find at, say, a Neiman Marcus or Corner Bakery. Yet in a massive mall that opened in the late 90s in Providence, Rhode Island, some underground artists converted an unoccupied nook in the into mall into a little apartment space that nobody else knew about. Documentary Secret Mall Apartment, helmed by Jeremy Workman, chronicles the exploits of a team led by Michael Townsend, an eccentric yet deeply talented artist who saw his hometown changed by the sweeping hand of gentrification.
So many old buildings had crumbled in the name of corporate progress meant to placate and lure out-of-towners. Now, Townsend and company were taking a major swipe at their corporate overlords with this ramshackle apartment. Here was a space conceived, designed, and maintained by members of the local community. It wasn’t made for capitalistic gain, but rather so people could have a quieter zone to bond. From 2003 to 2007, the titular location of Secret Mall Apartment was a miracle. Now, in documentary form, the folks behind it delve into this seemingly impossible domicile.
Early on in Secret Mall Apartment, archival footage chronicles a mid-1990s Providence art exhibit Townsend put up underneath some local train tracks. Within the city's grimy underbelly, Townsend put up a series of mannequins suspended far above the ground caught in various poses, like sleeping on a couch or putting one’s hands up in despair(?) It was an installation that had no promotion beyond local Providence residents whispering about how you could see something amazing if you traveled down the right pipes. Yet, despite the lack of bruhaha around its existence, there was something miraculous about it. Secret Mall Apartment’s recalling of this event is already quite striking since the low-fi camcorder imagery really accentuates the quiet eeriness of Townsend’s underground project.
However, spending time on this event also thoughtfully demonstrates how carving out a living space within a mall was no anomaly in Townsend’s life. This was a man dedicated to placing art wherever he could in his hometown. Inevitably, that included infiltrating an intrusion on classic Providence architecture. Secret Mall Apartment relays carrying out that infiltration through new interview segments with Townsend and his seven accomplices as well as decidedly early 2000s camcorder footage of these artists pulling off their scheme. Through a teeny tiny camera Townsend and others fit into the palms of their hands, they captured actions like getting hordes of cinder blocks into their ignored
The very cramped spacing and borderline intrusively intimate nature of these images are both entirely incidental. These qualities are byproducts of early 2000s at-home cameras wielding significant visual limitations. Plus, years of CreepyPasta’s and other online horror material have codified an ooky aura around imagery evoking the era of 2002 Sony mini-cameras. However, those qualities ramp up the tension of Townsend and company trying to sneak past alarms, security guards, or other obstacles. The lack of professional polish really makes you feel like you’re right there with these artists pulling off the most outlandish mission imaginable. No wonder a lengthy sequence where everyone tries to smuggle countless cinder blocks into the mall is more engrossing than the entirety of many modern heist movies!
So transfixing are these scenes of Townsend and friends going all Narragansett Bay's Eleven that I yearned for even more material covering these exploits. A closing sequence off-handedly mentions that they somehow got a PS2 and TV to operate in here, which just raises further questions. Gimme more stories, please, about how y’all accessed electricity. Further stories about varying emotions from Townsend’s seven pals about their feelings regarding this closed-off domicile would’ve also been welcome. Alas, Secret Mall Apartment’s second half doesn’t just remain in its titular confines. Instead, Workman balloons out its scope to show that Townsend and his artist friends were also putting good into the world.
They’d go to a local children’s hospital, for instance, and put up tape art in the rooms of sick kids. Footage is also shown of this collective engaging in lengthy art projects paying tribute to 9/11 victims. Some of this material is moving, particularly the tape art for sick youngsters. These segments are especially interesting because of how they contrast with the real estate developers who built that ungainly mall. While these tycoons didn’t consult anyone in Providence about this capitalistic entity, Townsend and pals are always asking the adolescent patients what they want to see on their wall. Here, the act of creation is one of cooperation, not a one-sided endeavor further lining the pockets of the 1%.
Creativity as a springboard for rich human experiences also manifests in modern-day Secret Mall Apartment segments showing a handful of the original apartment creators navigating a vividly detailed recreation of the space. Watching folks like Adriana Valdez Young trot through a simulacrum of that sacrosanct area is a truly moving experience. Workamn also shrewdly and unexpectedly gets extra mileage out of this set late into Secret Mall Apartment. This space proves perfect for some Errol Morris-style recreations of an especially fateful day in Townsend’s life that took place in that apartment years ago. A camcorder wasn’t there to capture this event as it unfolded, but now Workman and company can recreate it with the aid of this backdrop.
The mule-faceted uses of this fake mall apartment embody how cleverly the concept of artistic creation manifests throughout Secret Mall Apartment. These flourishes (which include looking back on other Townsend art installations) inform a compelling execution of various espionage-laden anecdotes that’re already plenty mesmerizing on their own merits. Occasionally, Secret Mall Apartment’s increasingly expansive scope proves troublesome. Specifically, this production can lose sight of the distinctive hidden domain that inspired this feature in the first place. More often than not, though, Secret Mall Apartment is just the kind of documentary we need more of.
Here’s a project centered on working-class lives that isn’t afraid to instill in audiences constant reminders that anything is possible in this world. Great art can come from strands of tape. Rebukes against gentrification are possible. And yes, apartments can exist anywhere. That final lesson, to paraphrase Hobbes from Calvin & Hobbes, "certainly ought to be applicable elsewhere in life."