Morbid Anatomy Museum Co-Founder Says the Venture Achieved Its Aims

GOWANUS, BROOKLYN — Looking back on what was achieved, Joanna Ebenstein said the museum had become what it was intended to be: a "dignified space" where people were free to seriously and creatively discuss "the greatest human mystery" — the fact that everyone is going to die.

Ebenstein was the co-founder of the Morbid Anatomy Museum, a short-lived but well-regarded Gowanus institution that opened on Third Avenue in 2014 and announced it was permanently closing this week.

Money was what it came down to, in the end. Reached by phone on Wednesday, Ebenstein explained that her rent was more than $10,000 per month for 4,200 square feet, a mighty increase from when the museum rented 300 square feet of space in 2007 at the (now also closed) Proteus Gowanus for $300 monthly.

Initial funds from the project's early backers had run out, Ebenstein said, and the museum tried to keep its numerous lectures and exhibits affordable, meaning its visitors only contributed so much in total revenue.

Ebenstein also said she struggled over the years with grant funding, often a major source of museum support.

The issue, she said, was that the Morbid Anatomy Museum was "difficult to fit into a funding category," as it was a museum, an art exhibition hall, a lecture space and a creative space, all rolled into one.

But such realities didn't dampen her enthusiasm for what the museum embodied while it existed.

Ebenstein said she had always been called "morbid" during her life, because she was engaged by death, a topic she feels becomes culturally taboo as children grow into adults.

The museum was a space that its members helped define, she said, offering a home where those in "alternative academedia" could "create less conventional projects related to their research."

While some knew the museum for its exhibits — "Taxedermy: Art, Science and Immortality," perhaps, or the same theme morphed into a wedding featuring kittens — Ebenstein also reflected fondly on the space's film showings and lectures, including its annual "Festival of Arcane Knowledge" which featured 20-minute lectures on numerous topics throughout the day.

Ebenstein said the museum's focus was on "historical attitudes" about death, rather than trying to "question our own attitudes about death today," but she still said it advanced that latter conversation, one very necessary in a world where death is so shockingly present in so many new forms.

The co-founder said that almost all of the museum's permanent collection belongs to her personally, and that she doesn't have plans to display it publicly any time soon.

Those wishing to stay aware of her to-be-determined future work can follow her Facebook page, or email joanna@morbidanatomymuseum.org to be added to her distribution list.

And Ebenstein said those who enjoyed Morbid Anatomy should spend time at funeral director Amy Cunningham's "Death Cafe," a free space where conversations about death can take place. Cunningham will be running the cafe once a month at Green-Wood Cemetery, Ebenstein said.

It seemed unlikely that Ebenstein would open another space like the museum, but if she did, she'd go into the venture understanding that making it work is "a constant hustle." Not unlike life itself.

Top image courtesy of Morbid Anatomy Museum/Facebook