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Visitors to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unusual experiences in its vast Turbine Hall. They've basked under an man-made sun, glided down helter skelters, and witnessed robotic jellyfish floating through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nose chambers of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this huge space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a maze-like structure modeled after the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can meander around or chill out on pelts, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders imparting narratives and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It could sound whimsical, but the exhibit celebrates a obscure scientific wonder: researchers have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the creature to endure in extreme Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "creates a perception of smallness that you as a person are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- reporter, young adult author, and land defender, who is from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that creates the possibility to shift your viewpoint or spark some humility," she continues.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine installation is among various elements in Sara's immersive exhibition honoring the heritage, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They have faced oppression, forced assimilation, and repression of their dialect by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the art also draws attention to the group's issues associated with the climate crisis, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Components

At the lengthy entrance incline, there's a soaring, 26-meter formation of skins entangled by utility lines. It represents a analogy for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this section of the installation, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, in which dense coatings of ice appear as changing temperatures liquefy and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' main winter sustenance, lichen. The condition is a result of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in freezing temperatures as they carried containers of supplementary feed on to the exposed Arctic plains to distribute through labor. The herd gathered round us, scratching the icy ground in futility for lichen-covered morsels. This costly and laborious method is having a significant effect on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. Yet the alternative is malnutrition. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are succumbing—some from hunger, others suffocating after sinking in lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the installation is a tribute to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

This artwork also underscores the sharp contrast between the modern interpretation of power as a commodity to be harnessed for profit and survival and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an inherent essence in animals, humans, and the environment. This venue's history as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. As they strive to be leaders for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their human rights, ways of life, and way of life are threatened. "It's hard being such a small minority to stand your ground when the justifications are rooted in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Mining practices has appropriated the language of ecology, but still it's just striving to find alternative ways to maintain practices of expenditure."

Personal Challenges

She and her family have personally clashed with the national administration over its tightening regulations on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's sibling initiated a set of ultimately unsuccessful legal cases over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. To back him, Sara developed a extended collection of creations named Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal curtain of numerous reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it hangs in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Awareness

For numerous Indigenous people, visual expression is the exclusive realm in which they can be understood by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|