Browsing through Youtube for LEF-related videos, I found this footage of LEF cofounder Alexis Zeigler talking about the mission of the Farm. This was clarifying for me, since much of the information on the LEF website is heavy with technical jargon and analyses of different sustainability practices. Zeigler’s straightforward statements make clear the social analysis behind the project. For LEF members, the entirety of current American mainstream culture is unsustainable, not just our energy sources but the scale and decadence of our homes, transportation methods, and consumption.
This makes me wonder about the place of a digital archive in LEF’s ideal world. On one hand, such an archive might seem unnecessary and even harmful in terms of its presence on the Internet, a big part of American consumerism. However, Zeigler articulates that the challenge of their movement is the difficulty in convincing everyday people to live more simply. The goal of LEF is to serve as a demonstration of that possibility, so an archive will hopefully serve as a useful platform.