Collections Moving Images

Watch Portable Channel Videos

  • Bonnie Klein and Sandy Rockowitz watch a television set outside with a group of young men.
    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 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.

    Digitized videos from the Portable Channel archive can be viewed from VSW’s Vimeo channel.
    An inventory of the collection can be viewed here.

    In May, 2020, VSW received a Recordings at Risk grant from Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to digitize 200 of the earliest Portable Channel tapes. The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Videos from the CLIR project can be viewed here and the metadata from these tapes can be accessed here.

    All programs are © Portable Channel / Visual Studies Workshop. For more information please contact taranelson@vsw.org.

  • Black and white photo with three men holding film equipment who are interviewing a woman.
    David Christoff, Steve Manes, and Sanford Rockowitz film for Homemade TV Episode 1 (1972).
  • Several senior women watch a television set.
    Senior citizens watching themselves on television in the first episode of Homemade TV, "Portable Channel Meets Senior Citizens," in 1972.
  • Black and white photograph of a television monitor with text on it
    Television monitor that reads "Produced at Portable Channel, 308 Park Ave, Rochester, NY." Circa 1973.
  • Scan of a page from a catalogue.
    Page from Portable Channel's Homemade TV catalogue describing "Self Help Productions," which aired on WXXI-TV in 1973.
  • Poster with text and an image of a television monitor.
    Poster advertising a Homemade TV episode titled "Women on Women," which aired in 1973.
  • Black and white poster with television monitor that reads "Electronic Images"
    Original Portable Channel poster advertising a video workshop with artists Ralph Hocking and Sherry Miller at VSW, 1974.