Nestled between highways and city neighborhoods, Eliza Howell Park in Northwest Detroit is a wild and evolving landscape where nature coexists with urban life. Making photographs as the seasons of his own family life unfolded, Edgar Cardenas’ work asks: What becomes possible when we intentionally cultivate more intimate relationships with the land and its living histories?
Cardenas challenges representations of wilderness shaped by historical U.S. Geological Survey photography and influential twentieth-century figures like Ansel Adams. These portrayals often depict nature as pristine and untouched by human presence. In contrast, Cardenas expresses grounded, everyday relationships with the landscape, recognizing it as continuously shaped by both human life and natural time.
Inspired by childhood curiosity, Indigenous knowledge, and the rhythms of seasonal change, Meanwhile in Detroit explores how we can be in relation with the natural world, especially in places often overlooked or considered “ordinary”. Organized by season, this exhibition reflects the sensory experience of returning to a place over time. It begins and ends with winter, a season that mirrors our present moment: one of reflection, uncertainty, and the quiet possibility of renewal.
Out Now
Keynote for Aldo Leopold Foundation
