Collections Moving Images

VSW Video Archive

  • Stills from "Quaker Locks," a Portable Channel video featuring interviews with a Rochester-based dance group. Original format: 3/4" U-matic

  • The VSW Video Archive houses more than 6,000 videos from the early 1970s to the early 2000s. Video formats in this collection include VHS, Betamax, U-matic ¾ inch, 1/2 inch, 1″ and 2″ open reel formats. The majority of the content originates from artists, activists, and public access programming from the greater Central and Western New York regions as well as significant early experimental artists’ video productions.

    This historical video collection includes tapes from the New York State Council on the Arts, Axlegrease, Raindance, VideoFreex, Synapse, Portable Channel, Experimental TV Center, Ithaca Video Festival, Woodstock Community Video, and Rochester’s TV Dinner. It contains work by noted artists Bill Viola, Nam June Paik, William Wegman, Joan Jonas, Sanja Ivekovic, Dalibor Martinis, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Tony Conrad, Brigid Polk, Vibeke Sorenson, Wendy Clarke and many more. The VSW video collection is currently being cataloged and digitized by our in-house Media Transfer Lab.

    For more information

    In-depth searches of our video collections are available through links below.

    To request material or to begin an assisted search of the collections, please fill out the Collections Inquiry Form

    For further collection-related inquiries, contact Mary Lewandowski, Collections Manager at marylewandowski@vsw.org or Tara Merenda Nelson, Curator at taranelson@vsw.org

    For licensing inquiries, contact Tara Merenda Nelson, Curator: taranelson@vsw.org

  • Bonnie Klein and Sandy Rockowitz of Portable Channel watch a television set outside with a group of young men. Photograph by Larry Gale, 1972.

  • Portable Channel Collection (Rochester, NY), 1970s

    Portable Channel was a Rochester, NY non-profit (1971-1987) founded by documentary filmmaker and activist Bonnie Sherr Klein. Portable Channel supported community access to video equipment, provided training, and produced programs with an emphasis on community activism and documentary work. Portable Channel’s mission was to expand television into a medium for social dialogue and artistic expression by encouraging community involvement in TV production.

    The Portable Channel tape collection consists of more than 1,000 videotapes in various formats; the majority of the material is ½ inch open reel with some ¾ inch and a few examples of 1 inch and quad. About half of the videotapes in the collection were produced for HOMEMADE TV that ran from 1972 to 1975 on WXXI-TV in Rochester, NY.

    Explore Portable Channel

     

  • 3/4" U-matic tape

  • VSW/NYSCA Collection, 1970s-2000s

    The VSW Collection contains over 2,500 tapes accumulated over 50 years of early video collective tape trades and distribution, Media Center programming and traveling exhibitions, student and MFA works, and various tape donation and rescue. Part of this collection is the NYSCA Collection.

    The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) collection consists of 441 videotapes made between the years 1971-1990 on 1/2”open reel, Umatic, Beta and VHS. The tapes were sent to NYSCA by artists, collectives and communities who were seeking or reporting on funding through the Electronic Media Fund (EMF), one of the first state-funded programs for electronic media arts. Created in 1970, EMF provided grants to New York state artists and collectives to support innovative and creative projects that would expand the possibilities of the emerging video form. The NYSCA Collection at VSW is  a repository site of the NYSCA Memory Archive.

    Explore the VSW/NYSCA Collection

  • TV Dinner promotional still, circa 1993

  • TV Dinner Collection (Rochester, NY), 1980s-1990s

    TV Dinner was the media task force of Rochester’s Metro Justice for more than two decades, and helped chronicle many of Metro Justice’s concerns and activities, including racial justice, reproductive choice, utility issues, and the ongoing struggle for universal healthcare. Founded in 1987, TV Dinner ran video training workshops, film screenings, community art events and organized a weekly cable access television program. In Summer 2022, Metro Justice gifted the TV Dinner archive to VSW.

    This extensive collection of over 1,200 videotapes include produced programs, community reports, documentation of civic events, speeches, rallies, confrontations and celebrations created and collected by Metro Justice members. Topics covered include police brutality, ecological issues, the Akzo Mine Disaster, nuclear energy, LGBTQ+ rights, indigenous cultures, the AIDS epidemic, reproductive rights, healthcare, and immigration. Formats include VHS and S-VHS, 3/4″ Umatic, 8mm and Hi8, and miniDV.

    Explore the TV Dinner Collection

     

  • AXLEGREASE tapes

  • Axlegrease Collection (Buffalo, NY), 1990s

    In 1987 Squeaky Wheel began producing a public access cable program called Axlegrease – a weekly installment of curated selections of experimental video art and documentary films from a wide array of local and national artists through artist, collective, and/or public access partner station submission. Axlegrease, the U-matic Tape Years is a unique collection of digitized ¾” tapes with significant historical and cultural value.

    Explore the Axlegrease Collection