About

 
 

Morbid Anatomy was created as a blog by Joanna Ebenstein in support of a photo exhibition in 2007. From there, it expanded to a public research library and cabinet of curiosities; a series of exhibitions, books, films. and public events; a stand-alone museum, and, ultimately, the wide-ranging arts and educational organization you find today. Click here for our code of conduct.

STAFF

Joanna Ebenstein
Founder and Creative Director

Joanna Ebenstein founded Morbid Anatomy as a blog in 2007. An award-winning curator, photographer, graphic designer and author, her books include Memento Mori: The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life, Anatomica: The Exquisite and Unsettling Art of Human Anatomy and Death: A Graveside Companion. Joanna teaches a number of popular classes for Morbid Anatomy on topics ranging from death and art to exploring creativity and ambivalent deities. She is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Morbid Anatomy Online Journal. Her paternal grandparents were emigres from Hitler’s Vienna, and her ancestor Judah Loew ben Bezalel was credited with creating the Golem in 16th century Prague. She is a proud member of The Order of the Good Death, and her TEDx Talk—Death as You've Never Seen it Before—has been viewed over 16,000 times.

Charlotte Plum
Library and Shop Manager

Charlotte Plum is a New York City native and currently lives in Brooklyn. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from The New School and was the recipient of the 2022 Bette Howland Prize in nonfiction. Her work explores the parameters between nonfiction and poetry, life and death, and is inspired by liminal spaces and the elasticity of being. She has been published in The Brooklyn Rail, Twenty Magazine, Public Seminar, 12th Street Journal, and A Public Space. She is a mom to a miraculous human, and even though she saw Jaws years ago when her own mother told her not to and it scared her out of the ocean for a while, she tried surfing.

Hannah Highman
Docent Coordinator

Hannah Hightman is Manhattan-based writer, collage and performance artist, clown, puppeteer, micronational leader, and DIY visionary. She received her M.A. in Creative Publishing & Critical Journalism from The New School and has written for publications including V Magazine, A.V. Club, HelloGiggles, and Tussle Art Magazine. She also manages the publication Odradek, which is focused on uncanny life, an interest that drew her to Morbid Anatomy.

THE MORBID ANATOMY MUSEUM (2014-2016)

The Morbid Anatomy Museum was a non-profit space founded by Joanna Ebenstein, Tracy Hurley Martin, Colin Dickey, Tonya Hurley, Laetitia Barbier, Evan Michelson and Aaron Beebe in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. The museum was an expansion of Ebenstein's long-running project, the Morbid Anatomy Blog and Library. The museum building had a lecture and event space, a cafe and a store.

The museum was housed in former nightclub building the interior of which was re-modeled by architects Robert Kirkbride and Tony Cohn in 2014. In Ebenstein's words, the new space was designed to give a home for a "regular lecture series and DIY intellectual salon that brings together artists, writers, curators and passionate amateurs dedicated to what [Joanna Ebenstein] sums up as 'the things that fall through the cracks'".

The space focused on forgotten or neglected histories through exhibitions, education and public programming. Themes included nature, death and society, anatomy, medicine, arcane media, and curiosity and curiosities broadly considered. The artifacts featured in its rotating exhibitions were drawn from private collections and museums' storage spaces.

MORBID ANATOMY (2017-2024)

Morbid Anatomy was created as a blog by artist, designer and independent scholar Joanna Ebenstein in support of a photo exhibition in 2007. Setting out to survey the interstices of art and medicine, death and culture, its image-heavy and scholarly-yet-accessible posts developed a cult following of artists, academics, and rogue scholars.

Since then, it has expanded to include the Morbid Anatomy Library & Shop in NYC, lectures, exhibitions, classes, spectacles, symposia, field trips, books, parties, and films.

It is best known for its brief incarnation as the critically acclaimed Morbid Anatomy Museum (2013-2016), co founded by Ebenstein with Tracy Hurley Martin in Brooklyn, New York.

Another important contributor to Morbid Anatomy was Laetitia Barbier, who, from 2012 to 2024, worked as programming director, head librarian, and occasional curator. From 2018 to 2024, the organization was run by Joanna Ebenstein and Laetitia Barbier. 

Today, Morbid Anatomy is still overseen by its founder and creative director Joanna Ebenstein, and continues its activities with a variety of online offerings as well as community collaborations with partners and venues.

EXHIBITIONS, PUBLICATIONS AND FILMS

Past Exhibitions

Publications

Film Production