MICHAEL TOWNSEND MARKS SECRET MALL APARTMENT VOD & DVD RELEASES BY CELEBRATING 36 YEARS OF TAPE ART

Providence, RI – September 12, 2025 — With the release of Secret Mall Apartment on Video-on-Demand on September 16th (Amazon, Apple TV, Fandango at Home, Google Play, YouTube), and a DVD/Blu-ray coming in ​ November 18, artist Michael Townsend is capitalizing on the momentum generated by the documentary to spotlight the art movement he co-founded. He is also taking this opportunity to showcase his impactful community projects and the innovative forces currently influencing his artistic endeavors.

Directed by Jeremy Workman and executive produced by Jesse Eisenberg, the critically acclaimed documentary follows Townsend and his collaborators, who, in 2003, secretly built and lived in an apartment inside Providence Place Mall for four years. What started as an underground protest against gentrification has become a cultural phenomenon, a story about art, resistance, and community.

But for Townsend, the film is just one piece of a much larger puzzle.

“I’ve spent more than 30 years making art that disappears, murals made of tape, a secret apartment in a mall, and a Manhattan-wide 9/11 street art memorial,” says Townsend. “The mall apartment was never just about sneaking furniture into a hidden room. It was about creating connection, sparking imagination, and leaving behind stories that live on long after the art itself is gone.”

The VOD release date of September 16 also marks the 36th birthday of Tape Art, the ephemeral mural practice Townsend pioneered in Providence in 1989. Since then, Townsend and his collaborators have created more than 500 large-scale murals across the U.S. and abroad, working with schools, hospitals, prisons, and public spaces. His work has introduced collaborative drawing to more than 60,000 participants.

This August, Townsend and artist Leah Smith hosted two Tape Art workshops at Providence Place Mall (Aug 17 and Aug 28), where families will use tape and BOOM! Projectors to draw directly on the walls of the mall. 

Tape Art’s 9/11 project stands among Michael Townsend’s most powerful and resonant works, echoing the bold interventions of artists like Banksy and Christo. In the years following the attacks, Townsend and the Tape Art collective transformed city walls into temporary monuments of remembrance, creating memorial images that appeared overnight and disappeared just as suddenly. Executed at more than 500 locations over five years, this project invited public participation and reflection, using only painter’s tape to craft hundreds of portraits of first responders that spoke to resilience, unity, and the healing power of art. Like Christo’s monumental wrappings or Banksy’s fleeting provocations, Townsend’s 9/11 works were designed to be ephemeral, their impermanence underscoring the fragility of memory while elevating the collective spirit of a city in mourning. Plans are now underway to reintroduce this extraordinary body of work on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, with an exhibition of photographs, video, and archival materials that captures not only the art itself but the defiant compassion and communal energy that fueled it.

“If the film brings someone to Tape Art, to pick up a roll of tape, to join a workshop, or to dream a little bigger, that’s the real legacy,” Townsend adds.

About Michael Townsend
​Michael Townsend is the founder of the Tape Art movement. For over 30 years, he has created hundreds of ephemeral murals and community projects around the world. His work includes the 9/11 Hope Project, the invention of the BOOM! Projector, and the now-legendary Secret Mall Apartment. More at www.tapeart.com.

About Secret Mall Apartment
​Directed by Jeremy Workman and executive produced by Jesse Eisenberg, Secret Mall Apartment is the unbelievable true story of eight artists who secretly built and lived in a hidden apartment inside the Providence Place Mall. The film premiered at SXSW 2024, opened in theaters nationwide in 2025, will be available on VOD September 16, 2025, and arrives on DVD/Blu-ray this October via Music Box Films. 3min featurette with Jesse Eisenberg. https://secretmallapartment.com

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