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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an simulated sun, slid down amusement rides, and observed AI-powered sea creatures floating through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal passages of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this immense space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a labyrinthine construction inspired by the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Upon entering, they can meander around or chill out on reindeer hides, tuning in on earphones to community leaders imparting tales and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It might appear whimsical, but the installation honors a obscure biological feat: scientists have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the incoming air it breathes in by eighty degrees, helping the creature to survive in harsh Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "generates a perception of inferiority that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." The artist is a former journalist, writer for kids, and land defender, who is from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Possibly that generates the possibility to shift your viewpoint or evoke some modesty," she states.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine design is part of a elements in Sara's immersive exhibition honoring the traditions, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, cultural suppression, and repression of their dialect by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the art also draws attention to the group's issues connected to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Elements

At the lengthy access incline, there's a towering, 26-metre sculpture of pelts trapped by utility lines. It represents a metaphor for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this section of the installation, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, in which solid sheets of ice develop as varying conditions thaw and refreeze the snow, locking in the reindeers' key winter sustenance, lichen. Goavvi is a consequence of planetary warming, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than elsewhere.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a icy season and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they hauled trailers of food pellets on to the barren frozen landscape to provide by hand. The herd crowded round us, scratching the slippery ground in vain attempts for mossy morsels. This expensive and demanding procedure is having a severe impact on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. Yet the alternative is starvation. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—some from lack of food, others drowning after plunging into streams through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the work is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

This artwork also underscores the stark contrast between the industrial view of power as a resource to be utilized for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an innate life force in animals, humans, and nature. The gallery's history as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by regional governments. As they strive to be standard bearers for clean sources, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi assert their human rights, ways of life, and way of life are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the justifications are based on saving the world," Sara comments. "Extractivism has adopted the discourse of sustainability, but yet it's just attempting to find alternative ways to continue practices of consumption."

Family Challenges

The artist and her kin have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its tightening regulations on herding. In 2016, Sara's sibling undertook a set of unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his herd, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a multi-year series of artworks titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal drape of numerous cranial remains, which was displayed at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Awareness

Among the community, art is the sole sphere in which they can be heard by people of other nations. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|