Joanna Ebenstein

Bio

In addition to co-founding Brooklyn’s Morbid Anatomy Museum (with Tracy Hurley Martin), Joanna Ebenstein recently published The Anatomical Venus. The illustrated book examines the allure and mystique surrounding a famed wax figure created in 18th-century Italy for the purpose of teaching anatomy at the first public science museum in Florence. The Venus is a life-sized, fully-dissectible wax woman with real human hair, glass eyes, and a string of pearls. She’s captured in a pose that suggests a kind of metaphysical ecstasy.