because it wasn’ t public while we were doing it. Obviously, it was international news after we got caught, but to me it always made sense. It was just part of my life.
The documentary is made of clips taken by you and the others with an old camera. What did you originally plan to do with those recordings? TOWNSEND: Nothing. It’ s kind of akin to family movies— it was used to document a memory rather than to share with the masses. We spent two years working on this September 11 project leading up to the first time we started working in the mall. So for two years, that group of artists was constantly documenting themselves and their street crimes. We were in the habit of just documenting our process.
Have your feelings about the mall changed since the film’ s release? TOWNSEND: It’ s a tough one. I had a moment with one of the heads of the receivership team and we talked about what the mall could be and talked about learning lessons from Providence’ s mistakes in the past. Ironically, it was also the receivership team for Eagle Square, which made me go,‘ Wait … both projects are bankrupt?’ I had some genuine optimism for about five or six months where we were having conversations and meetings, and I thought it was the type of leadership that will save the mall. To save it, you’ re going to have to take some genuine risks, like change what the mall actually does for Providence. It’ s still, at its heart, always going to be a vessel for commercialism, but it could have theater groups and basketball leagues and health care and educational services. There’ s more than enough room under that roof for those things to happen.
Nothing happened. This is what happens with so many institutions: You’ re always one person away from it being awesome. The crazy thing about the mall is it’ s such a big building. Physically, it’ s not going anywhere. Providence represents us and they made the decision for us that this is going to be a part of the heart of our city. If it fails, the city will be in real trouble. The Providence Preservation Society wrote that if you demolish the mall, the amount of energy and resources it took to make it would
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