Fiona Gardner and Uche Nduka

Fiona Gardner was born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her mother is descended from Romanian Jews and Germans, and her father's family has roots in the United States dating back to the American Revolution. Gardner was raised in an observant Jewish household. She became involved in the arts during her childhood and she attended the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island for a B.A. in painting. Gardner lived in Boston for three years before moving to New York City to attend Columbia University for a graduate degree in the visual arts.

Uche Nduka was born and raised in Umuahia, Nigeria. His family is Igbo and he was a child during the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-1970. He studied literature and history at the University of Nigeria and worked as a freelance journalist. He lived in Bremen, Germany and Amsterdam, Holland for about twelve years, and then moved to the United States in 2007. He lived in Brooklyn and attended Long Island University for an M.F.A. in creative writing.

"People look at us as if we dropped in from the clouds, even at this phase of human history. I didn’t know that we can still have that kind of reaction, even within New York. It’s not like people voice it out in terms of antagonistic confrontation, but they can still see it in the eyes. The surprise -- “Oh, how do they manage?” You know: “how did that happen?” And all that."