In January 2026, I visited Vilcabamba, a remote valley in Ecuador known as the Valley of Longevity, where people use Indigenous practices and live extraordinarily long lives close to the land and soil.
While there, I photographed three women who have each built remarkable gardens. Carmen is from the Saraguro Indigenous community and has become a co-owner of the land she cultivates, developing her own techniques for growing plants alongside endemic species. Anita is a jazz singer who grew up in the American Midwest, traveled the world, and eventually put down roots in Vilcabamba, transforming several acres of land into Ecuador’s first residential ecological domes that live alongside healing spaces and a quietly extraordinary ecosystem. The third is my aunt, originally from the Dominican Republic, and a lifelong student of plant medicine, gastronomy, and ayurvedic practice.
What struck me most was not the gardens themselves but the sorority among these women. They cook for each other, share what they grow, and exchange knowledge from vastly different traditions and geographies.
In these photographs, the women are not just working in their gardens; they are becoming them. As flowers press against their skin, the garden nourishes them in return.
