Secret Mall Apartment (Workman, 2025)
Secret Mall Apartment is one of those quirky human-interest stories that either delight you with their premise or leave you befuddled, wondering what all the fuss is about. I was in the former category.
When Michael Townsend, an artist with a penchant for installation pieces, watches the construction of a shopping mall in Providence, Maine, he notices a gap in the design which looks as though it will create a hidden enclosure once the building is complete. By exploring the construction site after hours, he figures out a way into the enclosure, and he is even able to access it once the building has been completed. During construction, materials were stored in the room-sized compartment, but once construction is complete it becomes sealed off from the rest of the finished building. Townsend found that he could still get in through the method he found while it was being built, and he was able to explore the hidden parts of the mall, including some parts that have never been seen or used.
For many of us, that would be the end of the story. A few outliers might report their findings to mall security or look for some way to monetize their secret knowledge. Townsend decided to channel his artistic creativity and make a secret clubhouse.
With the help of some carefully selected cohorts, Townsend moves a sofa and a display cabinet into the apartment. There was apparently a long extension cord that provided electricity from an outlet within the mall. Then, the group set out to build a wall around the loft space so that anyone going up the stairs in the storage area would not stumble into their apartment by accident. At one point, mall security runs across the group moving cinder blocks from the parking garage to the storage space below the apartment. To the amazement of all involved, they are able to talk their way out of the situation without the living space being discovered.
From a narrative standpoint, there is not much to cover in between the apartment’s construction and its inevitable discovery, so we get tangents describing other art projects Townsend and his friends are involved in. These are probably meant to persuade those who don’t get it that the group are not simply deadbeats or criminals. They spend more money fixing up the apartment than they make off of it, but they are still trespassing. I thought on first viewing that the film would have been stronger if it stuck to this one project rather than trying to address broader themes about the nature and purpose of experimental art. Even one of those interviewed admits that she has mastered the patter explaining the apartment as an art project but remains unsure where or not she believes any of it. But a second viewing persuaded me that it is the exploration of motivation that invests the film with such pleasure, not necessarily the execution of the plan.
It never would have occurred to me to make such an apartment, but neither can I imagine any other response to it than, “well that is pretty cool.” What starts off as a bit of a tall tale gradually develops into an all-time great art documentary. Some of the impact is helped by the treasure trove of archival footage, but a good documentary still has to piece it together. At its heart, Secret Mall Apartment is about a profound question — what gives our space and art value? It argues, somewhat persuasively, that we value that which we are told to value — by our environment, by our culture, by our media. But it also reminds us that we don’t have to simply accept the world’s valuation of anything. We can choose what we spend our time, labor, and money on.
