秘密购物中心公寓

Who hasn’t dreamed about living in the mall? From the fantasy of Mannequin to the capitalist threat of Dawn of the Dead to the secret identities and hidden storerooms in season three of Stranger Things, the mall is a metaphor for comfort, consumerism and confrontation. Secret Mall Apartment, the newest member in the mall-movie pantheon, tells the remarkable story of a group of art students who create an apartment inside the Providence Place Mall. They record everything on tiny cameras hidden in Altoid boxes, from the construction of a brick wall, to the installation of furniture and a locking door, to tapping into the mall’s electricity. They move in, like barnacles on a whale—playing house and miming the unattainable, unaffordable and unreal domestic lifestyle the mall markets—for four long years. But the whale doesn’t care… Is this all just a prank? A clandestine art installation? A provocative demand for public housing or a protest against local gentrification?