Susan Vogel lives in New York, grew up in Beirut, and has lived for long periods in a village in Ivory Coast, and a medieval city in Mali. She is internationally recognized as a curator and African art expert. She has published many books, and written a few, founded an art museum in New York - that survived her departure - and directed two museums. She then successfully completed two years as an MFA student at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and became a filmmaker.

Vogel has a PhD in art history and has held the positions of curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Founding Director of the Museum for African Art, Director of the Yale University Art Gallery, and Professor of Art History at Columbia.