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

An award-winning curator, photographer, graphic designer and author, Joanna Ebenstein is the founder of Morbid Anatomy. Her books include  The Art of Fairy Tales, 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 nearly 20,000 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.

Nicole Sully
Communications Manager

Nicole Sully is a digital marketing professional with a background in psychology, as well as teaching Visionary Occult Communications. Her work bridges the occult, psychology, and the abnormal.

Board of Directors

Jack Sanderson: Chair

Since retiring from his corporate career as a Human Resources executive, Jack has focused on helping nonprofit boards and Executive Directors build their governance capabilities. Jack currently serves on the board of Knology, a social science research nonprofit, where he also is chair of the Governance Committee. Jack previously served on the board of Upstate Films and the Board of Overseers for Bard College at Simon’s Rock. Jack’s volunteer work focuses on his passion for the arts, culture and educational organizations and their capacity to transform human connections and community. In his professional career, Jack worked with Moody’s Corporation for 20 years where he was Managing Director of Human Resources. He has experience working in Hong Kong and London, leading the HR function in both regions. He holds a BA degree summa cum laude in Political Science from Drew University, and a MPA from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. 

Joanna Ebenstein: Vice Chair

Julia Knight: Secretery

Julia Knight is a nonprofit arts administrator with more than 15 years of experience in New York City. After building out the artist residency program at apexart, she became the Founding Director of Poster House, a museum that opened in Chelsea in 2019 where she took the project from foundational documents to fully-functioning museum. She is now the Director of Operations at The Grolier Club, a bibliophiles organization with public programming, where she is entrusted with overhauling the financial, technical, and building systems after 150 years.

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 a 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