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Attendees to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unexpected displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an simulated sun, slid down amusement rides, and seen AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. However this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this immense space—developed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a labyrinthine design modeled after the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Inside, they can wander around or unwind on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to community leaders imparting stories and knowledge.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It may appear whimsical, but the artwork honors a little-known scientific wonder: scientists have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it breathes in by 80°C, allowing the animal to endure in harsh Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "produces a sense of insignificance that you as a person are not superior over nature." She is a former writer, young adult author, and land defender, who is from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that generates the possibility to change your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine structure is among various elements in Sara's absorbing art project celebrating the traditions, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They have faced discrimination, forced assimilation, and repression of their tongue by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the installation also draws attention to the people's issues connected to the climate crisis, land dispossession, and external control.

Metaphor in Materials

Along the long access slope, there's a looming, 26-meter formation of skins ensnared by electrical wires. It serves as a symbol for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this component of the installation, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, in which solid coatings of ice appear as changing weather melt and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' main winter sustenance, fungus. This phenomenon is a consequence of global heating, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than in other regions.

A few years back, I visited Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they carried trailers of food pellets on to the barren frozen landscape to distribute manually. The herd crowded round us, pawing the icy ground in vain for lichen-covered morsels. This expensive and laborious process is having a significant influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. But the other option is starvation. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—some from lack of food, others submerging after falling into lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. On one level, the work is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The sculpture also highlights the clear divergence between the industrial understanding of power as a asset to be exploited for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of life force as an innate essence in creatures, individuals, and nature. The gallery's legacy as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be exemplars for renewable energy, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, river barriers, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their human rights, livelihoods, and traditions are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to protect your rights when the arguments are grounded in saving the world," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the discourse of ecology, but yet it's just attempting to find alternative ways to persist in practices of consumption."

Family Struggles

The artist and her kin have themselves disagreed with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent rules on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's sibling initiated a series of finally failed legal cases over the forced culling of his livestock, apparently to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara created a multi-year collection of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi including a massive screen of numerous animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it resides in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For many Sámi, creative work appears the sole domain in which they can be understood by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|