Bio

Nickey Robare, aka Nickey Robo, attended Hampshire College, where she received a BA in film and cultural studies. Her senior thesis film, The News Is What We Make It, won the Media Reform Award, sponsored by Utne Magazine, at the 2005 Media That Matters film festival. Since graduating in 2004 she has been a traveling nanny for a punk band, a member of the world’s first all-female mini bike dance team, a pedicab driver, a cook in a vegan lunch cart, and a 90wpm data entry drone- all while maintaining her passion for media literacy. She held a variety of positions at the Independent Publishing Resource Center in Portland, OR, where she also helped organize the Portland Zine Symposium. She has continued to produce short films, which have been screened in festivals nationwide. She served for two years as an Americorps VISTA as part of the Digital Arts Service Corps program. Through this program she spent one year working with the OLLIE Youth Media program at Portland Community Media, and one year working with Reel Grrls in Seattle, WA. She has now moved back to Portland, where she continues to do graphic design and marketing work for non-profits. It is one of her most deeply held beliefs that the key to positive social change is access to media skills. She is also car-free and rides her bike to work every day, usually in a dress.