Sarah Lewison: The People's Monsanto Hearings
Angela Watters, ReaderSupported News
wenty years ago Sarah Lewison and four female collaborators [1] took off on the first of its kind, but heretofore hard-to-find, bio-diesel road trip documentary, “Fat of the Land.” In the film, the women dressed as waitresses and embarked on an experimental, environmentalist journey, driving from New York to San Francisco in a Chevy van run on bio-diesel fuel made from kitchen grease collected at diners and fast food restaurants they passed along the way.
They financed the film using a nascent version of crowdfunding. Since no Kickstarter or Indiegogo existed at the time, the artists paid for their project the old-fashioned way by asking people for support over the phone, by mail, and over the radio. The women appeared on NPR several times and even once on the old Paul Harvey Show. As donations rolled in, the artists painted the names of their donors on the van in a show of appreciation.
A limited run on PBS followed the release of the film, and environmentally conscious viewers – hungry for a solution to America’s perpetual energy problems – learned to make bio-diesel from the film, and some even started their own grease-fueled journeys. Hailed at the time as a grand, wacky environmentalist experiment, “Fat of the Land” illustrated the possibilities of a D.I.Y. worldview before that was a household phrase or a hipster credo.
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