Director Lynn Hershman was an integral part of the Feminist Art Movement, and she experienced its development, struggle, and impact on the art world firsthand. Over the past 35 years, she has conducted more than 53 hours of interviews with the visionary artists who shaped the destiny and belief structure of the Feminist Art Movement, including as Judy Chicago, Miriam Shapiro, Judith Baca, Suzanne Lacy, Yvonne Rainer, Rachel Rosenthal, Sheila de Bretteville, and Faith Ringgold. These interviews reveal previously unknown information, such as the strategies to politicize women artists and the creation of, as Miriam Shapiro says, "an underground railway" of information about women's artwork that was sent around the world.
Her documentary film, WAR: Art, Women, and Revolution, elaborates the relationship of the Feminist Art Movement to 1960s anti-war and civil rights movements and how historical events, such as the all-male protest exhibition against the invasion of Cambodia, sparked the first of many feminist actions against major cultural institutions. It details major developments in women's art of the 1970s, including the first feminist art and educational programs, major political organizations and protests, alternative art spaces such as the AIR Gallery in New York and the Los Angeles Women's Building, feminist art publications such as Chysalis and Heresies, and landmark exhibitions of women's art, performances, and installations of public art that not only influenced, but actually changed, the direction and history of art.
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