Made during Bello’s 2023 residency at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico, these drawings are of the bark of Siberian Elm (Ulmus pumila) thriving in the area, and the waters of the Rio Grande (called Posoge by the Pueblo people). At the heart of this series are analogies to migration. Downstream of the Rio Grande, near the Texas-Mexico border, the National Public Radio reported floating barriers on the river as “self-defense” being installed against an "invasion of unauthorized migrants.” Bello learned that the Siberian Elm, which she finds magnificent, is generally viewed as an aggressive non-native species that grows even where water is scarce but is also deeply appreciated by many for the lush shade it offers in the desert sun. There is, in adaptation, the potential for invasive scourge to evolve into treasured refuge.

The Rio Grande starts its 1,900-mile journey as the snowmelt of the Rocky Mountains, flowing through a massive gorge created by tectonic and volcanic activity millions of years ago, rounding and smoothing boulders made of basalt from the lava flows. Subject to years of political disputes over allocation and impacted by climate change, the river has periodically suffered from extreme drought. All the way south, the waters reach the border between Mexico and Texas where it serves as a sign of hope or the threshold of unwanted incursion. The river ends its journey at the Gulf of Mexico and further into the shores of the Yucatan Peninsula where the clay that settled in the remnants of a mass extinction caused by an asteroid impact 66 million years ago changed the trajectory of life on Earth.