Visual artists Madelon Hooykaas (*1942) and Elsa Stansfield (*1945, †2004) had worked together for over thirty years. They first met in 1966, when they were studying Photography and Film at the Ealing School of Art and Design in London. After spending five years abroad and staying in a Japanese Buddhist monastery for the first time (further visits would follow in the years ahead), Amsterdam became Madelon Hooykaas’s main place of residence. Soon after, Elsa Stansfield and Madelon Hooykaas started their intensive collaboration in the field of film and video.

Today, the artist duo Stansfield/Hooykaas is regarded as one of the key figures of European video art. Their films and video installations deal with humanity’s relationship to the environment and nature in a way that is poetic and spiritual. Inspired by Zen-Buddhist philosophy of mindfulness, Stansfield/Hooykaas draw the viewer’s attention to such ‘invisible’ physical phenomena as energy cycles and electromagnetic waves. The artists render the natural forces (storm, hydropower) visible using the moving image and at the same time present the viewer with a scientific look at nature, one that is driven by modern technologies.
Since 2007, Madelon Hooykaas has been producing video installations, performances, and audio works under her own name.