Drive east from Los Angeles for an hour or so and you’ll reach the Coachella Valley, a branch of the Sonoran Desert that stretches into Arizona. From the earliest days of Palm Springs the area has been a mecca for Hollywood celebrities, snowbirds and retirees. It’s home to the Coachella Music and Arts Festival and Desert X, the installation biennial, whose latest show includes work by Tyre Nichols, the Memphis photographer who died in January 2023 from a severe beating during a traffic stop.

Strong west winds mark the entrance to the valley, making Coachella home to gigantic fields of electricity-generating windmills. The winds also create continual dust storms and cause trees and shrubs to hug the ground and lean to the east.