Secret Mall Apartment

In 2003, eight Rhode Island artists created a secret apartment inside the busy Providence Place Mall and lived there for four years, sneaking in furniture, tapping into the mall's electricity, constructing walls, and even smuggling in more than two tons of cinderblock, filming everything along the way. More than just a wild prank, the apartment became a deeply personal expression of defiance against local gentrification, and a boundary-pushing work of public/private art in which large-scale charitable art projects were planned, including, finally, a 750 square-foot middle finger to The Man.