Reza Farkhondeh was born in Iran and received a BA from the University of Tehran in 1980. He subsequently received a BFA in Painting at the Beaux-Arts de Dijon, an MFA from the Villa Arson in Nice in 1991 and also studied at the Institute des Hautes Etudes en Arts Plastiques, in Paris.

Ghada Amer was born in Cairo in 1963. In 1974, her parents relocated to France where she began her artistic training ten years later at villa Arson, Nice, France. She currently lives and works in New York and has exhibited, among others, at the Venice Biennale, the Sydney Biennale, the Whitney Biennale, and the Brooklyn Museum.