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Visitors to the renowned gallery are used to surprising experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have basked under an artificial sun, glided down helter skelters, and seen AI-powered sea creatures floating through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nasal chambers of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this immense space—designed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a winding design modeled after the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nose airways. Upon entering, they can meander around or unwind on skins, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders imparting narratives and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It might sound playful, but the artwork pays tribute to a rarely recognized biological feat: researchers have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it takes in by 80°C, allowing the creature to endure in inhospitable Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "generates a feeling of smallness that you as a person are not in control over nature." She is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who is from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that creates the chance to alter your outlook or spark some modesty," she states.

An Homage to Sámi Culture

The maze-like installation is part of a elements in Sara's absorbing art project showcasing the heritage, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They've experienced oppression, forced assimilation, and eradication of their language by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the work also spotlights the community's struggles associated with the climate crisis, property rights, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Materials

Along the long entrance slope, there's a soaring, eighty-five-foot formation of skins entangled by utility lines. It represents a metaphor for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this section of the artwork, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, whereby solid layers of ice appear as varying weather melt and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' main winter nourishment, moss. Goavvi is a consequence of global heating, which is happening up to four times faster in the Polar region than globally.

A few years back, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they transported carts of food pellets on to the barren tundra to dispense by hand. The herd surrounded round us, digging the slippery ground in futility for vegetative bits. This expensive and laborious method is having a severe effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the other option is starvation. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from hunger, others drowning after falling into water bodies through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the art is a monument to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

This artwork also emphasizes the stark divergence between the industrial view of power as a commodity to be exploited for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an inherent power in animals, individuals, and nature. This venue's history as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be exemplars for sustainable power, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and way of life are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to stand your ground when the arguments are grounded in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the discourse of environmentalism, but still it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to continue patterns of consumption."

Family Challenges

She and her kin have themselves conflicted with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent regulations on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's brother embarked on a set of finally failed lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, apparently to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara created a four-year set of creations called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal curtain of numerous animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the lobby.

Art as Advocacy

Among the community, creative work appears the only domain in which they can be listened to by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|