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Guests to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an artificial sun, slid down spiral slides, and witnessed automated jellyfish hovering through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nose cavities of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this huge space—designed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a maze-like construction based on the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nasal airways. Upon entering, they can wander around or relax on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to tribal seniors telling narratives and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It may seem whimsical, but the artwork pays tribute to a obscure scientific wonder: researchers have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it takes in by 80°C, allowing the creature to survive in extreme Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "generates a feeling of smallness that you as a human being are not in control over nature." She is a ex- reporter, young adult author, and land defender, who comes from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that creates the chance to alter your outlook or trigger some modesty," she states.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine installation is one of several components in Sara's immersive commission celebrating the heritage, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They've endured discrimination, cultural suppression, and repression of their tongue by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the installation also highlights the people's issues relating to the climate crisis, loss of territory, and external control.

Symbolism in Materials

At the lengthy entrance ramp, there's a towering, 26-metre sculpture of pelts trapped by utility lines. It can be read as a analogy for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this part of the installation, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which thick layers of ice appear as varying conditions melt and refreeze the snow, locking in the reindeers' main cold-season nourishment, moss. The condition is a consequence of planetary warming, which is happening up to four times faster in the Arctic than elsewhere.

Previously, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they transported carts of food pellets on to the barren tundra to provide by hand. The reindeer crowded round us, scratching the slippery ground in vain for vegetative bits. This costly and laborious procedure is having a drastic impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. Yet the alternative is starvation. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—some from hunger, others suffocating after plunging into streams through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the work is a monument to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

This artwork also emphasizes the sharp divergence between the western interpretation of electricity as a commodity to be exploited for profit and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of energy as an innate essence in animals, people, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be standard bearers for sustainable power, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi assert their legal protections, livelihoods, and way of life are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to stand your ground when the arguments are rooted in global sustainability," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the discourse of ecology, but still it's just striving to find alternative ways to persist in habits of use."

Family Struggles

Sara and her relatives have themselves clashed with the national administration over its ever-stricter policies on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's brother undertook a series of unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his animals, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara produced a multi-year collection of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal curtain of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the the show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it resides in the entryway.

Art as Awareness

For numerous Indigenous people, visual expression appears the only sphere in which they can be understood by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|