Truth is often more bizarre than fiction. That’s certainly the case with the subject of Director Jeremy Workman’s documentary, “Secret Mall Apartment”, which Rivertown Film is screening on Wednesday July 23rd at the Nyack Center (58 Depew Avenue, Nyack).
In 2003, a group of artists managed to create an apartment, in which they were able to live undetected for four years in the Providence Place Mall in Rhode Island. Locating an isolated area away from the retail corridors, they decide to construct and document a performance art piece – using tiny digital cameras – that lampooned developer’s obsession with “underutilized spaces”. Funny stories about almost getting caught are interwoven with the way in which Providence officials were dealing with the urban decay. What’s revealed is that an apartment can be art if it’s fused with life, a way of existing rather than just something you make and then sell. The participants in this project had been part of a class at the Rhode Island School of Design, and was imbued with the blurring of the lines between life and art. Ultimately the apartment was discovered and banned. “Secret Mall Apartment” makes a compelling case that the project reverberates through the lives of the artists, and maybe even the city, to this day. Art doesn’t have to be in a museum to be valuable; it doesn’t have to be own-able, repeatable or even make sense to everyone. If it changes a few lives, then it’s changed the world.
There will be a post-film discussion with the director, Jeremy Workman and Vera Aranow, whose documentary, “Megamall” (2009) chronicled the twenty year struggle to prevent the construction of West Nyack’s Palisades Center Mall, which is now facing foreclosure. The Community Partner for the evening is Nyack Art Collective,
The film begins at 8pm and doors open at 7:30pm. Tickets are $13/General
Admission, $11/Students & Seniors, and $9/Rivertown Film Members More information can be found at rivertownfilm.org.
