Jongsma + O’Neill is the creative partnership of American director and artist Kel O’Neill and Dutch creative director and producer Eline Jongsma.
Together they create large-scale storytelling projects that leverage cutting-edge technology to explore history’s impact on society. Their exhibition Loot-10 stories, which ran from 2023-25 at The Mauritshuis in den Haag and The Humboldt Forum in Berlin, uses virtual reality and immersive experience design to explore the topics of looted art and restitution, and won the 2024 Körber-Stiftung XR History Award as well as a 2025 High Commendation from the Museums+Heritage Awards.
They won the 2022 IDFA DocLab Creative Technology Award for their Instagram-based documentary and AR project His Name is My Name, and received the Tim Hetherington Visionary Award for their VR documentary The Ark. They are Emmy nominees, Webby Honorees, and were Sundance New Frontier Program Artists in Residence.
Their films and experiences screen at globally-respected venues including the Tribeca Film Festival, The New York Film Festival, SXSW, and REDCAT, and have been acquired by platforms and networks including Hulu, PBS/POV, VPRO (The Netherlands) and Meta VR.
Matunda Groenendijk is a Dutch 3D artist who specialises in making VR experiences. She graduated with honors from the St. Joost School of Art & Design in 2021 and is now part of the collective Studio APVIS. The studio is known for immersive and VR projects such as The Imaginary Friend, De Lusten van Engelbrecht, Mixologist and Vincent’s Home, among others.
Matunda worked for Cinedans, Cinekid and exhibited work at Playgrounds, JEFF, Manchester Animation Festival, Kaboom, Stedelijk Museum Breda and the Grachtenmuseum Amsterdam.
She recently worked on Lacuna – a VR hybrid documentary that had its international premiere at Cannes Film Festival 2025 and was included in the festival’s Immersive Competition.
Through her work her work Matunda likes to connect with people by offering a different view of our world through bringing the physical world into the digital.
During the Next Talk Matunda will walk us through her process of creating Cycle, a VR poem she developed together with Amit Palgi. Cycle is a philosophical 10-min VR experience uncovering life’s hidden patterns through dance, animation and music. Matunda started working on Cycle during her Next trajectory.
