Artists' secret mall apartment protest and documentary about displacement by developers
Consensus Summary
In 2003, artist Michael Townsend and seven collaborators discovered and occupied a hidden, undeveloped space in the newly built Providence Place Mall in Rhode Island, turning it into a secret apartment as a protest against developers displacing artists from affordable mill buildings. They lived there intermittently for four years, documenting their project, before being caught in 2007 and facing minor penalties. Director Jeremy Workman later filmed their story in *Secret Mall Apartment*, which premiered in 2025 at the mall itself, winning awards and leading to the overturning of Townsendâs ban. The documentary highlights their broader artistic work, including the Hope Projectâa five-year effort to honor 9/11 victims with masking-tape portraits arranged as giant hearts in Manhattan. The film uses the secret apartment as a hook to explore themes of artistic integrity, community, and resistance to urban gentrification, emphasizing the artistsâ unpaid but deeply meaningful contributions to society.
â Verified by 2+ sources
Key details reported by multiple sources:
- Michael Townsend and seven artist friends occupied a hidden space in the Providence Place Mall in Providence, Rhode Island, starting in 2003
- The artists furnished the space, built a cinder block wall with a locking door, and lived there intermittently for four years before being caught in 2007
- Townsend was arrested in 2007, fined $60, given six monthsâ probation, and banned from the mall for life
- The documentary *Secret Mall Apartment* premiered at the mallâs cinema complex in 2025 and ran for 32 weeks
- The film won 12 film festival awards and reached number four on US Netflixâs top 10 list, leading to the overturning of Townsendâs mall ban in 2026
- The artists created the Hope Project, spending five years making masking-tape portraits of 9/11 victims placed in Manhattan to form four giant hearts on a map
- Director Jeremy Workman filmed the documentary *Lily Topples the World* in Athens in 2019, where he met Townsend and learned about the secret apartment
- Townsend lived in a former mill building called Fort Thunder in Providence, paying $150 a month for a 900-square-metre space in the 1980sâ1990s
- The mall opened in late 1999, triggering a wave of developer purchases that displaced artists from abandoned mill buildings in Eagle Square
- The artists were approached by around 30 producers/directors to film their story, but all were rejected for focusing only on the prank aspect
Source Articles
Developers drove these artists out of their homes. This is how they fought back
A new documentary charts the extraordinary tale of a secret apartment that went unnoticed for four years.
Developers drove these artists out of their homes. This is how they fought back
A new documentary charts the extraordinary tale of a secret apartment that went unnoticed for four years.