Secret Mall Apartment

For four years, eight Rhode Island artists lived undetected inside Providence Place Mall, filming everything with a point-and-shoot camera.

What started as a week-long plan in 2003 became a permanent 750-square-foot apartment. They smuggled in furniture, tapped the mall's electricity, and built a wall using more than two tons of cinderblock—all while security guards walked past daily. The apartment wasn't just a stunt. It was artist Michael Townsend and his collaborators' response to gentrification that had displaced them from their neighborhood.

The documentary reveals all participants' identities for the first time and explores what happens when artists reclaim space in a world designed to price them out.