[9] A self-proclaimed "American Indian Ceremonial Clown", "Culture Warrior," and "Tribal Citizen",[8] Luna's artwork was known for challenging racial categories and exposing outmoded, Eurocentric ways in which museums have displayed Native American Indians as parts of natural history, rather than as living members of contemporary society.

[12] Some of his best known pieces are: In The Artifact Piece (1987) at the San Diego Museum of Man, Luna lay naked except for a loincloth and still in a display case filled with sand and artifacts, such as Luna's favorite music and books, as well as legal papers and labels describing his scars.

[4] The work looked like a museum exhibit and was set in a hall dedicated to traditional ethnographic displays.

In the early 1990s, Luna stood outside of Washington DC's Union Station and performed Take a Picture With a Real Indian.

Luna describes the performance by saying:Standing at a podium wearing an outfit, I announce: "Take a picture with a real Indian.

[4] In this performance, Luna is acclaimed for having challenged the trope that Native Americans are "peoples of memory" in ways that white culture may envy as being more purely spiritual.

In another, he puts his diabetes on display, giving himself insulin on stage which is said by critics to be emblematic of the binary of the "wild" but "controlled" Native American.

[7] The piece he created, Emendatio, included three installations, Spinning Woman, Apparitions: Past and Present, and The Chapel for Pablo Tac, as well a personal performance in Venice, Renewal dedicated to Pablo Tac (1822–1841), a Luiseño Indian author and scholar, who went to study in Rome, where he died.

[4] Utilizing cultural aspects of both the Lusieno people and his own family, Luna's installations and performance expose the affects that the poor translation of Native identities as well as globalization has had in oppressing narratives of Native American memory while inspiring both "white envy" and "liberal guilt".

In maturity I have come to find it the source of my power, as I can easily move between these two places and not feel that I have to be one or the other, that I am an Indian in this modern society.[7]"Yes.