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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to unusual experiences in its vast Turbine Hall. They have basked under an man-made sun, slid down helter skelters, and observed automated sea creatures floating through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be engaging themselves in the detailed nasal chambers of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this huge space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a winding construction inspired by the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can wander around or unwind on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to Sámi elders sharing narratives and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It could seem whimsical, but the artwork pays tribute to a rarely recognized scientific wonder: experts have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it breathes in by 80°C, enabling the animal to endure in extreme Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "generates a feeling of insignificance that you as a individual are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- journalist, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who is from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that generates the chance to shift your outlook or evoke some modesty," she states.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The maze-like structure is among various elements in Sara's immersive commission honoring the heritage, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They've experienced persecution, integration policies, and eradication of their language by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the work also draws attention to the people's struggles relating to the global warming, property rights, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Elements

On the lengthy entry ramp, there's a towering, 26-metre structure of pelts entangled by electrical wires. It can be read as a symbol for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this component of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, whereby dense layers of ice appear as changing conditions melt and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' main cold-season sustenance, lichen. This phenomenon is a outcome of global heating, which is happening up to four times faster in the Arctic than elsewhere.

A few years back, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and went with Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they carried containers of supplementary feed on to the barren tundra to provide by hand. These animals gathered round us, scratching the slippery ground in vain attempts for mossy pieces. This resource-intensive and demanding procedure is having a significant influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. Yet the choice is starvation. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—a number from lack of food, others drowning after sinking in streams through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the work is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

The installation also highlights the stark difference between the modern view of power as a asset to be harnessed for profit and existence and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an natural power in animals, people, and the environment. The gallery's past as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by regional governments. As they strive to be exemplars for renewable energy, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, river barriers, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi contend their human rights, livelihoods, and traditions are at risk. "It's challenging being such a limited population to stand your ground when the arguments are based on global sustainability," Sara comments. "Extractivism has co-opted the rhetoric of environmentalism, but still it's just attempting to find better ways to continue practices of expenditure."

Individual Struggles

She and her family have personally disagreed with the state authorities over its ever-stricter rules on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's brother embarked on a series of finally failed court actions over the forced culling of his animals, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara created a four-year series of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive curtain of numerous reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it hangs in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Awareness

For numerous Indigenous people, art is the sole realm in which they can be listened to by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|