Artists are known for wanting to do unusual things, and sometimes bizarre things. Michael Townsend is an artist from Providence, Rhode Island. He had an unusual and unusual idea, for some and a bizarre idea, to live in a mall. Until then, Michael lived in a warehouse in an art district in Providence, which was eventually bought by some investors and demolished. Despite Michael’s protests accompanied by his friends, they lost their home. The development of shopping malls has been on the rise since 1999, when mass construction of shopping malls began around the world. A $ 500 million mall was built on the site of Michael’s home and spanned 1.4 million square feet with more than 160 stores, surrounded by parking spaces.
Michael could not come to terms with the fact that his shelter was demolished, so he passed by the shopping center under construction every day in the role of protagonist. After a while he noticed a space that according to him would have no purpose, it is simply empty space. Michael and his friends decided to start a project called “Trummerkind”. The name of the project translated from German to English means “Children of the Ruins”. Their idea was to try to live in the mall for a week. They came up with the idea by looking at the empty space we mentioned above, which Michael remembered passing by the mall under construction every day. Michael and his friends managed to create a real apartment of 750 square meters, which they managed to build with a fake ash wall and used a simple auxiliary door to hide the entrance. Their home was filled with light bulbs, a PlayStation3 which was later stolen by an intruder, a TV set, but they still had no plumbing. However, because they were in a huge mall, they used the cinema bathroom late at night. Michael and his friends came up with a successful concept called weekly life, so they successfully took out the trash in backpacks and buckets. You must be wondering how they managed to live in the mall without being noticed by the people around as well as by the security of the mall? The surprising fact is that they remained in their secret apartment for 3 or 4 weeks unnoticed. They created a successful tactic and had one and only principle that was clear and precise and that was that they should not talk about the secret apartment in the mall. Then let us surprise you a little more. Ready? – Michael and his friends stayed in that apartment for 4 years without being noticed.
All this would look great and who knows how long it would last, until one day when Michael and his friends returned to the secret apartment, they were greeted by three security guards. Michael, 36, was arrested and certainly did not dispute the charge. Michael was sentenced to probation, but his “home” disappeared forever. Interestingly, the authorities were also really impressed with the project of Michael and his friends. The officers then visited the secret room out of curiosity, but still agreed that it was a crime because the malls are privately owned.
