Handforth grew up in London, England, and attended Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and the Slade School of Fine Art at University College London.
She has lectured extensively nationally and internationally and has taught photography and media, as well as photo and video history and critical studies, at Rutgers University, where she was a professor for thirty years, and at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, Germany.
Hefuna studied in Germany and received her post-graduate degree from the Institute for New Media at the Städelschule, Frankfurt under Peter Weibel (1992).
Raised in Germany, Ohly attended the Städelschule and was subsequently apprenticed to the German sculptor Hugo Lederer in Berlin.