If, like me, you spent your teenage years in American suburbia, then you probably ended up at your local moderately-run-down shopping mall most weekends. It is not that you were addicted to shopping as a 14-year-old—there was simply nowhere else to go within a 30-mile radius, besides the other shopping mall. Consumerism was thrust upon us at a young age by the very landscapes of America. Presumably, after making the rounds at the mall, you part ways with your friends and return home…right? The mall has always been a temporary destination, not a permanent one. Apart from the technical difficulties and legal barriers, living at the mall seems highly undesirable. The American Dream of consumerism seems to depend on the fundamental separation between the place you shop and the place you live.
Well, artist Michael Townsend, his wife Adriana Valdez Young and his friends Andrew and Jay thought otherwise. In fact, the quartet—later joined by an additional four more artists—lived in Providence Place Mall for four years from 2003 to 2007. It is a 1.4 million-square-foot institution located in downtown Providence. What was once an infamous small-town legend was recaptured as a hilarious and moving story of art and resistance in the 2024 documentary “Secret Mall Apartment” by director Jeremy Workman P ’27. On Sep. 10, I had the pleasure of attending the Film Department’s screening of “Secret Mall Apartment” followed by a Q&A with Workman.
In September 2003, the artists began a silly challenge of who could stay at the Providence Place Mall for the longest time without getting caught. They shared a Pentax Optio digital camera and documented their adventures: fitting room-hopping during the day and crouching behind a giant four-by-four column in a full-length puffer in the parking lot at night. That is, until Michael Townsend perused the Providence Place floor plan and recalled the scenes he saw on TV years ago of the construction of the mall. He discovers what appears to be a “nowhere place” hidden in the mall’s infrastructure. After climbing up giant ladders and squeezing through the cracks between walls, they found it: an abandoned, dusty 750-square-foot hole-in-the-mall.
Michael Townsend, after discovering a route to this nowhere space, felt the following: “We had a responsibility to do something with it.” Thus began their transformation of the secret mall space. Through their Pentax Optio, we watched the crew as they journeyed to the Salvation Army and attempted to discreetly sneak their thrifted furniture through the mall’s emergency exit. They set off the mall fire alarm each time. At this point, the nowhere place was feeling like more than just a momentary hiding spot. With a couch, TV, PlayStation, faux wooden cabinet that offered a façade of luxury and an entire 750-square- of free real estate, it was becoming a home.
This characteristically juvenile endeavor, however, occurred under the backdrop of Providence’s urban renewal project at the turn of the century. The mall itself, designed to be entered via the I-95 highway directly into the parking lot, was not made to be easily accessible to the people of Providence. The geographic location of the mall, therefore, drew a physical and symbolic demarcation between the wealthy and the working class. Prior to the establishment of the Secret Mall Apartment, many members of the project lived out of an artist collective named Fort Thunder, home to a vibrant underground art and music scene. Yet, in 2001, contractors showed up and expressed that they were planning on knocking the building down; by 2002, Fort Thunder was demolished and its residents were displaced. To Young, it was clear that this represented the beginning of an enduring process of gentrification.
At the time, the mall experiment was a side project for Townsend. Townsend is a professor at the Rhode Island School of Design who grappled with the idea of creating poignant pieces through temporary media that are almost guaranteed to be destroyed. For him, the mall project was not only an extension of his artistic fascination with impermanence; it represented the dissolution of the boundaries between installation art and performance art, between art and life. It was both an elaborate prank and a very real rebellion against the corporations that view individuals as revenue-generating machines instead of real people.
At its peak, the Secret Mall Apartment was complete with cinder block walls that its residents, now eight artists, painstakingly transported and built with their own bare hands, and a door with a distinct key. It was cozy, homey, spacious and, most importantly, free. After four long years of bliss, in 2007, the apartment was discovered by security through an accidental slip-up on Townsend’s behalf and was immediately demolished. Townsend was briefly detained before being released, and, as punishment, he was permanently banned from entering Providence Place. Fast-forward to 2024, and the former residents of Providence Place still carried their secret mall keys. Perhaps this is a testament to the enduring legacy of impermanent endeavors.
After the screening, Workman shared his inspirations and some behind-the-scenes moments from the documentary’s production. There had been numerous attempts to contact the Secret Apartment residents after the incident and document their story, but none were successful. In 2020, Workman befriended Townsend through a serendipitous encounter in Athens, Greece. As the two were having dinner, Townsend revealed he was the mall apartment guy. Workman had never heard of this urban legend before, but he was captivated by the story and wanted to capture it on screen. After a year of Workman’s convincing, Townsend finally agreed.
Workman concluded by sharing that in a cruel twist of fate, “Secret Mall Apartment,” which premiered in Providence Place, had performed so well that it became the second-best-selling film in the mall’s history after “Sinners.” The mall, which experienced significant financial declines in recent years, had no choice but to lift the ban on Michael from entering the mall, so that he could come into the mall’s theater and help promote the film.
“Secret Mall Apartment” will be available to stream beginning Sep. 16, 2025.