VIFF Review: Secret Mall Apartment

The secret apartment where eight artists lived for four years

The Vancouver International Film Festival kicked off a few days ago and I've already seen five films, all wonderful as I had hoped.

First on my list was the documentary, Secret Mall Apartment directed by Jeremy Workman. Indeed, as the title suggests, there was a secret apartment in a shopping mall in Providence, Rhode Island in the early 2000s.

Michael Townsend is an activist artist -- he believes that art is not a pretty picture, it has to have meaning, otherwise what is the point? A giant shopping mall called Providence Mall was being built in the neighbourhood he was in and as he watched it being built he could see there was a space that didn't seem to be earmarked for anything.

After the mall opened, he tried to find this space and did, telling three other artist friends about it. In the end there was a total of eight people who knew about this space, how to get there, but they had to keep it a secret.

The 750 square-foot space didn't have windows or running water, but it was a place they wanted to inhabit. So they bought furniture at thrift stores and undetected, managed to haul them into this space and live there -- for four years.

Secret Mall Apartment also talks about how these artists were influenced by Townsend, that they would facilitate art projects in a children's hospital, encouraging the young patients to make art with marking tape, and even paying tribute to the 9/11 victims by creating silhouettes of them with the marking tape around New York City.

The documentary also delves into the issues of housing, gentrification, the conflicts between developers and neighbourhoods, and displacement, by talking to people who were stakeholders when the controversial shopping mall was being approved by city hall and when it was being built.

What makes Secret Mall Apartment fascinating too is that there is proof it existed because they recorded themselves with tiny digital cameras and had some 20 hours of footage. It's grainy and not professionally shot, but it's a record of what they did, and many of the clips shown are amusing.

Apparently many people had approached Townsend about making a film about the secret apartment, but none of them were as genuine as Workman, researching not only the history of gentrification of the area, but also tracking down every one of the eight artists and finding out how much this secret apartment experience has influenced them as a person and their own art today. 

Thank goodness for Workman, who told this story beautifully, creatively and interviewed some people who were thrilled to go back in time with him.

Secret Mall Apartment

91 minutes

Directed by Jeremy Workman

Starring Michael Townsend