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Visitors to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unexpected encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an simulated sun, slid down helter skelters, and seen robotic jellyfish drifting through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this immense space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes visitors into a labyrinthine construction inspired by the expanded interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Once inside, they can meander around or relax on pelts, listening on headphones to tribal seniors imparting stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It could appear quirky, but the artwork celebrates a obscure natural marvel: scientists have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it inhales by eighty degrees, enabling the animal to survive in extreme Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "creates a feeling of smallness that you as a individual are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- journalist, children's author, and land defender, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that creates the possibility to shift your perspective or evoke some modesty," she adds.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The winding design is part of a components in Sara's absorbing commission showcasing the culture, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They've faced discrimination, integration policies, and repression of their tongue by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the work also spotlights the people's issues associated with the global warming, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Components

At the extended entry ramp, there's a towering, 26-meter structure of reindeer hides entangled by power and light cables. It can be read as a analogy for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this section of the installation, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, whereby thick coatings of ice form as varying weather melt and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary winter sustenance, moss. The condition is a consequence of climate change, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than elsewhere.

A few years back, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a icy season and joined Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they carried trailers of animal nutrition on to the barren tundra to distribute through labor. The reindeer gathered round us, digging the frozen ground in futility for vegetative bits. This costly and labour-intensive procedure is having a significant effect on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the choice is death. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are dying—a number from hunger, others suffocating after falling into streams through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the art is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

The installation also highlights the clear divergence between the modern interpretation of energy as a asset to be exploited for economic benefit and survival and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an natural power in creatures, individuals, and nature. This venue's past as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be standard bearers for renewable energy, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, water power facilities, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their legal protections, livelihoods, and culture are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to stand your ground when the arguments are rooted in global sustainability," Sara observes. "Extractivism has co-opted the rhetoric of ecology, but nonetheless it's just striving to find better ways to maintain patterns of use."

Individual Conflicts

Sara and her kin have themselves conflicted with the national administration over its increasingly stringent regulations on herding. In 2016, Sara's sibling embarked on a series of finally failed lawsuits over the forced culling of his herd, apparently to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara developed a four-year series of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi including a huge curtain of 400 animal bones, which was displayed at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entryway.

Art as Awareness

For many Sámi, visual expression is the only realm in which they can be listened to by people of other nations. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|