Meet Joanna Ebenstein | Founder and Creative Director of Morbid Anatomy, Writer, Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Joanna Ebenstein and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Joanna, let’s start by talking about what inspires you?
So many things inspire me! Right now–and for the last few years–the thing that has fascinated me the most are Latin American folk saints with a dark or ambivalent edge.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I initiated many, many projects over the course of my life. Morbid Anatomy is the one that was successful. It never SHOULD have been; its so odd, so niche… and in fact, it started with no intention of appealing to others. I founded the blog Morbid Anatomy in 2007 in support of a photo exhibition about medical museums that I had produced for Stefanie Rookis at the Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences. The blog was simply my way to organize all my research, and start digesting it. I made it look how I would want a blog to look, and wrote it the way I would want to read. It did not occur to me that it would appeal to anyone. Within days of having launched it, I was receiving emails from people around the world for whom it resinated. The lesson I take from this is that one should do what is one’s passion, exactly as one thinks it should be done. People respond to this authenticity far more than something that is designed cynically to attract an audience.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Right now, I am visiting Mérida, Mexico. If someone came to visit, I would start off with a dinner of ceviche, guacamole with grilled pineapple, and artisanal beers or cocktails in the garden of El Apapapacho. The next day, we’d start the day with tacos at Wayne’s, then get in the car and go visit the Mayan ruins of Uxmal. The next day, I’d take them to The Paranormal Museum, run out of a private home and filled with once possessed (now de-potentiated) objects, after which we would drive to the Celustun Biosphere, an Unesco world heritage site, where we would take a boat ride to see the flamingos and other wildlife. We’d have a late lunch on the beach–seafood and beer or cocktails. On our way home, we’d stop at a cenote, which are underground springs formed when the meteor that is believed to have killed the dinosaurs hit the peninsula. The Mayans thought they were entrances to the underworld, and they really do feel like that.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
So many people! First of all, my business partner Laetitia Barbier, without whom Morbid Anatomy would never be what it is. Stefanie Rookis, the curator who invited me to do an exhibition the Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences which led to the blog, which led to the company. My grandparents, who were emigres from Hitler’s Vienna, and who instilled a life long love of art and medicine. All my friends, who helped out in so many ways when the project was tiny. Sasha Chavchavadze, who invited me to install the Morbid Anatomy Library at Proteus Gowanus. My husband, who supports me and the crazy focus such a project requires… I could go on and on!

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