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Stephanie Madsen was born August 3, 1966 in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges in the suburbs of Paris, France of a Haitian father and a French mother. When she was 6 her family moved to Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Stephanie went to a Haitian school and learned Creole within the first 3 months. She lived 10 years in Haiti and then spent her last year of highschool in Paris, France where she graduated with honors. She moved to Santa Barbara, California and attended the College of Creative Studies at UCSB. She combined her studies in Science and Art, taking art classes and literature classes. After graduating she moved to Paris, France, where she studied Advertising and Communications as a graduate student. She then moved to San Diego, California. She started volunteering at the San Diego Symphony and after 3 months was offered the Assistant Manager position in the gift shop. She worked there for a year. She started volunteering at the Museum of Photography Arts in Balboa Park in the bookstore. There, she started showing her photos and received valuable feedback. She spent one year at the Che Café, a student collective at UCSD, where she organized acoustic concerts, prepared food and worked in the café. There she met artists, writers and political activists. She then worked in an art gallery downtown San Diego called Spagnollo Gallery. She got involved with the Espresso Newspaper, a San Diego paper geared for the café Society. She published a few reviews of concerts, including the San Diego bi-cultural art event called InSite. She went on a tour of the San Diego border for the Espresso and also another tour of the border for InSite. She took many pictures of the border then from both a political point of view and as an artist. In 1998 she travelled to Haiti for the first time in 15 years. Her photos reflect her perspective as someone who grew up there, but with perspective from California and France. She then moved to Bordeaux, France, where she gained recognition for her art. She contacted the art gallery Arret Sur L.Image as well as the Instituto Cervantes; both wanted to show her series of photos of the San Diego/Tijuana border. She then was offered a show at the prestigious CAPC the Contemporary Art Museum in Bordeaux. She was in a group show and showed an installation of her border pictures. She was interviewed by the French television channels FR3 and TV7 about her show and in the Sud-Ouest newspaper the biggest paper in Bordeaux. She belonged to an English speaking creative writing group and had her photos published in Louis Liard magazine. Back in San Diego she started working on a multimedia piece on Haiti using her photos including a voice over with a soundtrack.