If you've driven down Gene Autry Trail toward I-10, you've probably noticed a set of five new billboards along the road named after Hollywood's most famous singing cowboy.

They include a sequence of photographs depicting Chemehuevi tribal members. One contains the words, "No wall." Another features a Chemehuevi child standing in front of a set of windmills with dark clouds looming ominously overhead.

They're part of an installation titled "Jackrabbit, Cottontail & Spirits of the Desert" by Santa Fe-based photographer Cara Romeo, a member of the Chemehuevi tribe of the Southwest desert, for the biennial art exhibition, Desert X.

The project is said to respond to the ancestral lands of not just the Chemehuevi, but the regional Cahuilla, Serrano and Mojave peoples. The photography subjects are time-traveling Chemehuevis who have returned to their ancestral lands as a reminder of the people, cultures and history that inform this landscape.

The billboards are set in the same proximity as the mirage-like billboards created for the 2017 Desert X by Jennifer Bolande. But, they're facing a different direction, as if to point visitors to the Chemehuevi ancestral lands in the high desert and into Nevada and Arizona.

Romero discussed their significance in an email exchange:

Desert Sun: Why did you want viewers to see your billboard art as they were leaving Palm Springs and heading toward the high desert region that has long been home to the Chemehuevi?

Romero: We researched aesthetics and viewership. We wanted them to have space, be highly visible and allow people to enjoy them. The placement was not strategic to Chemehuevi ancestral routes or lands necessarily, but I do appreciate how people interpret art. I want them to think of all kinds of things they would never think of.

Can you describe the thought that went into the focus of your work?

The focus of my work in this series is to ground audience in the testament that Coachella Valley is Indian land. And all of California is Indian land. Yet, due to colonialism, genocide and the erasure of Native history in California schools, people forget, or deny, or simply don’t understand what that means. For Native Americans, it means our ancestors, our future generations and our DNA originate here. Our stories and our songs emerge from this place since time immemorial.

There are many local tribes whose ancestral lands comprise Coachella Valley and it was important to me to re-connect people to that fundamental confluence of indigenous people and the American landscape. And that local California tribes remain undivided from the Coachella Valley cultural landscape, the ecosystem and health of it. We are ontologically tied to our landscape. Our spirituality and our existence are inseparable from this landscape. And, despite development and 500 years of colonialism, we are still here and we will always be here. This photographic series is a visual depiction of our ongoing presence and our future here. The images convey our reverence for this landscape and convey the dynamics of our people — our warmth, our courage and our hearts. They convey an indigenous connection to our ancestry of this place and our connection to the ecosystem that we feel and experience all around us.

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Are the indigenous people in your photographs California Chemehuevi members?

Yes, all of the boys are Chemehuevi tribal members from California and also carry inter-tribal ancestry from the southwest. They are also Dine, Ute, Chemehuevi, Mojave, Opata. I have always photographed my friends and family as part of my artistic practices. That helps me stay true to self and stories. Authentic Chemehuevis are from a large ancestral territory — pre-reservation era — predominantly from the tri-state areas (of) California, Nevada and Arizona. We have stories that also go all the way north to Utah and all the way south to Mexico. We were once migratory. We consider ourselves descendants from all that area.

Can you explain the concept of the Chemehuevis on your billboards as time travelers?

The Chemehuevi boys ... have come to visit their sister tribes’ lands in good spirit and friendship. They have come in a cultural exchange to honor the Coachella landscape, share stories and remember their shared songs, family and memories from here.

As a Chemehuevi woman coming to this project, I am responsible to different cultural protocols. Initially, there was a big surprise for me in learning that I was the only Southern California Native to be invited to participate in a response to the landscape. With this incredible privilege came a great responsibility to my tribe and to all the tribes of Coachella. I started my project by writing a letter to be presented to the Agua Caliente Tribal Council — letting them know who I am, a Chemehuevi woman, and humbly requesting their blessing to visit as a Chemehuevi artist on their ancestral lands in Palm Springs. This is how we relate to each other and honor each other’s ancestral lands. I received permission.

Then it became very important to me to create a series of photographs that brought visibility for the local Native populations and did so respectfully. For me, it was so important to share the honor, to participate as well as I could with my larger California Native family. It became very stressful, it’s such a big responsibility. That responsibility guided my heart and efforts throughout the creation of these images.

One of your works says, "No wall." That would be an obvious reference to President Trump's campaign for a wall along the Mexican border. But, do you also want viewers to think about the figurative walls that have been put up between the Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Serrano and Mojave sister tribes, or the Native Americans and non-Native Americans who inhabit the Coachella Valley?

“No wall” is a reference to the unnatural wall proposed at the Southern border. It is a wall that would destroy the landscape, disrupt ancient ways of life, destroy ecosystem and the migratory pathways of resident animals.

All of the tribes from here share a worldview that we, as human beings, are joined to the landscape and ecosystem. We are not separate from it or each other. And we share the worldview that our ancestors are here with us, throughout time and place, and are watching and experiencing the changes in landscape and ecosystem. If all people embraced these worldviews, we could begin to have critical, Native-led dialogues around environment, ecosystems and borders.

I am attempting to communicate cross culturally: from our world to the outside world. I am attempting to elevate the visibility of the local Native populations and their connection to landscape. And I wanted to acknowledge our indigenous brothers and sisters from the south — that have also had a presence in the valley since time immemorial. I hope those outside our cultures and our — perhaps — future allies gain understanding and compassion for how we are interrelated and how we are inseparable from the landscape and each other.