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Guests to the renowned gallery are familiar to unusual displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an simulated sun, descended down helter skelters, and observed robotic sea creatures drifting through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal passages of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this huge space—created by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a winding construction inspired by the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Inside, they can meander around or chill out on skins, listening on earphones to tribal seniors sharing narratives and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It might appear whimsical, but the exhibit honors a little-known biological feat: experts have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it breathes in by eighty degrees, helping the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "produces a perception of smallness that you as a person are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- writer, children's author, and rights advocate, who hails from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that creates the possibility to shift your outlook or evoke some humility," she continues.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine installation is among various elements in Sara's absorbing commission celebrating the traditions, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They've experienced discrimination, forced assimilation, and repression of their language by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the work also draws attention to the group's issues relating to the global warming, property rights, and external control.

Symbolism in Elements

On the long entrance slope, there's a soaring, 26-metre structure of reindeer hides trapped by power and light cables. It serves as a analogy for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this component of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, in which dense coatings of ice develop as changing conditions liquefy and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' key winter nourishment, moss. This phenomenon is a outcome of planetary warming, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than elsewhere.

A few years back, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they carried trailers of food pellets on to the barren tundra to dispense by hand. These animals surrounded round us, digging the frozen ground in vain attempts for vegetative morsels. This expensive and laborious procedure is having a severe effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. However the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are succumbing—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after plunging into lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the art is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

This artwork also underscores the clear divergence between the western understanding of power as a commodity to be harnessed for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of life force as an inherent power in animals, people, 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 Nordic countries. As they strive to be leaders for renewable energy, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their legal protections, ways of life, and culture are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to stand your ground when the arguments are grounded in global sustainability," Sara comments. "Mining practices has co-opted the rhetoric of environmentalism, but still it's just attempting to find better ways to continue habits of use."

Family Challenges

Sara and her kin have themselves conflicted with the national administration over its increasingly stringent rules on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's sibling undertook a set of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. To back him, Sara created a multi-year series of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal screen of four hundred cranial remains, which was exhibited at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it hangs in the lobby.

Creative Expression as Awareness

Among the community, visual expression is the sole realm in which they can be understood by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|