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Visitors to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unusual encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an man-made sun, glided down spiral slides, and seen robotic sea creatures floating through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal passages of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this huge space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a maze-like construction inspired by the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose airways. Inside, they can wander around or unwind on pelts, tuning in on headphones to community leaders sharing stories and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It may seem playful, but the exhibit celebrates a little-known biological feat: researchers have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the ambient air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, helping the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "creates a perception of smallness that you as a individual are not superior over nature." She is a former reporter, children's author, and land defender, who hails from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that generates the possibility to alter your perspective or trigger some humbleness," she continues.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The maze-like structure is part of a components in Sara's immersive art project celebrating the heritage, science, and worldview of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, cultural suppression, and eradication of their dialect by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the art also highlights the group's challenges relating to the climate crisis, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Elements

On the long access slope, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot sculpture of skins trapped by power and light cables. It represents a metaphor for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this component of the installation, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein solid coatings of ice form as changing conditions liquefy and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' main cold-season sustenance, fungus. This phenomenon is a outcome of global heating, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Polar region than in other regions.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they hauled trailers of supplementary feed on to the barren frozen landscape to dispense through labor. The reindeer crowded round us, pawing the icy ground in futility for lichen-covered bits. This resource-intensive and demanding process is having a severe effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the alternative is starvation. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are perishing—some from lack of food, others suffocating after plunging into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the work is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

This artwork also emphasizes the stark contrast between the western view of electricity as a commodity to be utilized for gain and survival and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an innate essence in animals, humans, and the environment. This venue's legacy as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by regional governments. As they strive to be leaders for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and way of life are at risk. "It's hard being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the justifications are grounded in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Mining practices has adopted the discourse of ecology, but still it's just attempting to find alternative ways to persist in patterns of use."

Personal Struggles

The artist and her relatives have themselves disagreed with the national administration over its tightening rules on herding. A few years ago, Sara's sibling undertook a series of unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his livestock, supposedly to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a four-year set of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge screen of 400 reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Activism

For numerous Indigenous people, art is the only domain in which they can be heard by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|