in 2008 and 2009, moore traveled to detroit to portray in photographs “the idea that in an urban setting you could also have a landscape happening, the forces of nature intersecting with american urbanism, the process of decline also intersecting with the revival of nature.” in 2010, moore released detroit disassembled (damiani, 2010), with an introduction by detroit-native and poet laureate philip levine, to coincide with an exhibition at the akron art museum. he was originally invited to document the city by two young french photographers, yves marchand and romain meffre, who had been photographing detroit’s abandoned spaces since 2005. while moore’s detroit series follows the themes of transformation and decaying space explored in previous bodies of work, his focus on the motor city generated controversy in the pages of "the new republic" and the journal "guernica". the photographs were decried as “ruin porn,” which mike rubin defined in "the new york times" as “urban decay as empty cliché, smacking of voyeurism and exploitation.” curator sarah kennel writes in "the memory of time", an exhibition catalog from the national gallery of art, that, “in moore’s photographs, ruination serves more explicitly as an allegory of modernity’s failure.” other critics argue that whether or not moore’s detroit photographs fit the category of “ruin porn” is a matter of academic debate. joseph stanhope cialdella argues in the journal "environmental history" that moore’s work instead conveys the “aesthetic of a postindustrial sublime” which “gives nature the authority to transform the image of detroit into a novel, yet disturbing landscape that blurs the lines between wilderness and the city.” dora apel writes in "beautiful terrible ruins" that moore’s “pictures of detroit tend to emphasize the relationship of nature and culture, with nature in the ascendancy.” apel ultimately argues that the “ruin porn” images and debate fail to focus on the political and economic policies that are the root causes of the ruins.