While shopping malls have been hit with hard times due to the ease of online shopping, back around the turn of the 21st century, they were desirable places to go and hang out — so bustling and packed with people that, in 2003, a group of eight artists, led by Michael Townsend, got away with living in a secret apartment they built and furnished in the Providence Place mall in Providence, Rhode Island for four years.
The terrific new documentary “Secret Mall Apartment,” directed by Jeremy Workman (“Lily Topples the World”) and produced by Jesse Eisenberg, chronicles this amazing true story, which is described by one interviewee in the film as a “work of art,” “performance art,” “trespassing” and “a prank.” Townsend, along with his seven coconspirators — whose names had not been divulged until this film was made — regroup for the first time in 17 years to describe why they did it, and how they went undetected for so long.
