SECRET MALL APARTMENT

(director/writer: Jeremy Workman; cinematographers: Jeremy Workman, Michael Lisnet, Dan Kennedy; editors: Jeremy Workman, Paul Murphy; music: Claire Manchon, Olivier Manchion; cast:  Michael Townsend, Adriana Valdez Young, Andrew Oesch, Jay Zehngebot; Runtime: 91; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Jeremy Workman; A Wheelhouse Creative, Altman Films production; 2025)

“An offbeat fun documentary on artists fighting the good fight against gentrification.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Jeremy Workman (“The World Before Your Feet”/”True New York”) creates an offbeat fun documentary on artists fighting the good fight against gentrification and for art to be a vital part of one’s life.

Eight spirited Rhode Island artists live in a commune in the working-class neighborhood where a mall opened in 1999 that unfortunately served the needs of the affluent city residents more than it did its neighborhood. The artists listened in 2003 to a commercial for the mall, in which a mother says she wishes she could live there because it would make shopping so convenient. So the fun-loving artists decide to spend a night in the Providence Place Mall without permission when by accident they come across an untouched back corridor. Over a span of four years, they smuggled in sofas, furniture, video games and other things they needed to live there comfortably on a part-time basis.

The move was taken under the de facto leadership of the eccentric artist Michael Townsend. Also with the group is his now ex-wife and work partner, Adriana Valdez Young, who wasn’t as thrilled as he was over this goofy adventure.

For Townsend, this rebellious act was a way to stick it to the greedy corporate mall owners.

The film switches moods on the fly between just having a goof to getting serious by presenting a civics lesson. The anti-capitalist artists decry the way city officials and developers were addressing urban decay in Providence, as they give interviews and tell funny stories they had while living there.


Eventually the apartment was discovered in 2007, but only Townsend was caught. His punishment was to be banned from the Providence Place Mall.

The uneven film is dull when it moves away from its apartment scenes. In the end, it leaves us with the valid point that art should be part of our daily lives and not just an occasional museum visit.

It played at the SXSW Film Festival.

REVIEWED ON 12/16/2025  GRADE: B
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