Nancy Rosin

Nancy Rosin

Nancy

Rosin

04/20/1934

1967-Present

Nancy Rosin is an activist and videographer who spent over 40 years documenting the work of progressive political movements in Rochester NY.

She graduated Wilson College with a BA in history and pursued studies in video production, photography and design at Rochester Institute of Technology and Monroe Community College.

In the 1970s/1980s she was a workshop instructor at Portable Channel, a community video center in Rochester, N. Y. With video emerging as an exciting new technology, their vision was to expand television into a medium for social dialog and artistic expression by providing public access to video equipment and training. Through its Homemade TV series, videos produced at Portable Channel by ordinary citizens were some of the earliest in the country to be aired on television.

In the 1980s to 2000 Nancy was a producer and workshop instructor for TV Dinner, the Media Task Force of Metro Justice, Rochester, NY., a grassroots organization working for social and economic justice since 1965. TV Dinner was initiated by a group of Metro Justice members interested in creating media from a progressive political perspective. Utilizing the medium of public access television, TV Dinner monthly programs sought to present the greatest possible diversity of voices, particularly those most often ignored in mainstream television.

In addition to involvement with Portable Channel and Metro Justice, Nancy was a member of and/or organizer with several of the groups she documented. Among them: Women Against Violence Against Women and Women's Action for Peace, early feminist groups concerned with full spectrum of women's issues, from reproductive rights to images of women in popular culture; NICA (Non-Intervention in Central America), organization that led opposition to U.S. foreign policy in Central America; and the Sanctuary Movement, group that provided sanctuary for refugees fleeing political violence in the region.
Nancy has been the recipient of grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Reynolds Film & Video Fund, Rochester Arts and Cultural Center, Daisy Marquis Jones Foundation and American Bar Association. The work she produced with Portable Channel and TV Dinner is now part of the Moving Image Collection at Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, N. Y.

In addition to media work, Nancy is avidly interested in the history of the city of Rochester. In 2005 she was commissioned by the City to author a history of the Rochester Public Market in its centennial year. The Hands That Feed Us: 100 Years at the Rochester Public Market is available through the Monroe County Public Library system.