Liv Furman
- (they/them)
- furmanol@msu.edu
- N211 North Kedzie Hall
- Assistant Professor
- African American and African Studies
Biography
Liv Furman, Ph. D. (they/them) is a Black non-binary womanist artist, curator, educator, researcher, and memory keeper currently working on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary Lands of the Anishinaabeg the Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples at Michigan State University. Their work currently explores Black womxn’s everyday practices of quilt making, memory keeping, and storytelling as methodologies of resistance, sustainability, and flourishing. Their primary mediums include multimedia and digital collage, ceramics, quilt making, and the written and spoken word. Liv is also an avid urban gardener with interests in Black ecologies studies, food justice, food sovereignty, and sustainability.
Liv is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of African American and African Studies, and Assistant Project Director of the Quilt Index’s Black Diaspora Quilt History Project at Michigan State University.
Works
Afrofuturism & Quilts: Exhibition and Virtual Panel
- Exhibition Gallery: https://quiltindex.org//view/?type=exhibits&kid=62-186-65
- Virtual Panel: https://quiltindex.org//view/?type=stories&kid=62-186-66
Black Diaspora Quilt History Project: Artist Interview Series
Furman, O. A. (2024). Dream healer: An initiation. Sistories Literary Magazine: Pleasure Paths, 4(1). https://www.sistories.org/ad4a2a0b-dae6-4cbe-a716-4cbbadc927c2
MacDowell, Marsha, & Furman, O. (2023). The Black Diaspora Quilt History Project: A Resource for Inclusive Preservation, Research, and Teaching. Journal of Folklore and Education, 10(1), 36-45. https://jfepublications.org/journal/vol-10-1/
My quilts on the Quilt Index Website: https://quiltindex.org//view/?type=artists&kid=51-150-26
Gallery
College of Arts & Letters News
- MSU Juneteenth Celebration to Feature Events Led by African American and African Studies Faculty
College of Arts & Letters
June 10, 2026Michigan State University is hosting its sixth annual MSU Juneteenth Commemorative Celebration June 15-19, 2026, bringing together students, faculty, staff, alums and community members. Two faculty members from MSU’s Department of African American and African Studies — […] Read Now →
- Humanizing the Science: W.K. Kellogg Biological Station Artist-in-Residence Program Marks Fifth Year
College of Arts & Letters
May 22, 2026The Farmscapes to Forests: Kellogg Biological Station Long-Term Ecological Research Artists-in-Residence Program is entering its fifth year, featuring Kalamazoo-based visual artist Ellen VanderMyde as the 2026 Artist-in-Residence and the debut of the program’s first group […] Read Now →
- First MSU Faculty and Alum Selected for Artists-in-Residence Program at W.K. Kellogg Biological Station
College of Arts & Letters
May 28, 2025Michigan State University’s College of Arts & Letters will be well represented this year among the Farmscapes to Forests: Kellogg Biological Station Long-Term Ecological Research Artists-in-Residence Program. The 2025 artists-in-residence will include an assistant […] Read Now →
- Afrofuturism & Quilting Exhibition: Exploring Connections Within Teaching, Learning, and Quilt Praxis
College of Arts & Letters
April 17, 2024Stitch by stitch, quilt making has played an integral role in African American history. But the storytelling embedded in the quilts themselves is more than mere tradition. In the Afrofuturism & Quilts: Materializing Black Futures & Black Womxn’s Quilt Legacies […] Read Now →
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