Secret Mall Apartment is a Work of Art & Comradery

 

This evening, I ventured to the Somerville Theatre to take in a screening of the documentary Secret Mall Apartment. 

From 2003 to 2007, a group of artists in Providence, Rhode Island, led by Michael Townsend (a one-time drawing instructor at the Rhode Island School of Design) surreptitiously assembled a living space in the bowels of the Providence Place Mall. 

Originally done as a protest against the construction of the mall itself which opened in 1999 and gentrification around the mall which caused Townsend to lose the space he used for art and music, the living space would become a labor of love, a center of comradery for the group and, with it, a grudging acceptance of the mall itself. 

Townsend and his cohorts spent much of their time engaging in tape art in an official capacity at the Hasbro's Children's Hospital and in guerrilla style art paying tribute to those who died in the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing and the 9/11 attacks. The secret apartment was a source of joy amid the sorrow which surrounded their art.

Given the amount of material Townsend and company smuggled into the space while regularly triggering security alarms, it is remarkable they went years without being caught although they did have encounters with mall security. Although Townsend had an ability to talk his way out of a situation, the group attributed their longevity to white privilege arguing that if a group of black and brown people had encountered mall security the outcome would have been a lot different possibly ending with lethal violence. 

When Townsend was eventually caught by mall security, he was arrested and charged with trespassing receiving probation and a lifetime ban from the Providence Place Mall. The conclusion of the movie indicated the ban was still in place. However, this ban was lifted in March a few short months after the Providence Place Mall went into receivership. 

Ironically enough, the Providence Place Mall is considering converting some of its space into apartments. Yet another case of life imitating art. However, in the case of Michael Townsend life is art and art is life.