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Guests to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unusual experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an man-made sun, glided down spiral slides, and seen AI-powered sea creatures hovering through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nose passages of a reindeer. The newest artistic project for this huge space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a winding design modeled after the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal airways. Inside, they can wander around or relax on pelts, listening on headphones to tribal seniors sharing narratives and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It might sound whimsical, but the exhibit celebrates a obscure biological feat: scientists have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the ambient air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the creature to survive in extreme Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "generates a perception of inferiority that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." Sara is a former reporter, children's author, and environmental activist, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that fosters the chance to shift your perspective or evoke some humility," she states.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The winding design is part of a components in Sara's absorbing art project honoring the traditions, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total about 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They have faced discrimination, cultural suppression, and eradication of their language by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the work also highlights the community's issues connected to the climate crisis, property rights, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Materials

Along the long entry incline, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot structure of pelts ensnared by power and light cables. It represents a analogy for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this part of the artwork, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein thick layers of ice appear as fluctuating conditions thaw and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary winter nourishment, fungus. Goavvi is a consequence of climate change, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than elsewhere.

Previously, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and went with Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they hauled carts of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to provide by hand. The reindeer surrounded round us, digging the slippery ground in futility for lichen-covered bits. This costly and laborious process is having a significant impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the choice is malnutrition. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are dying—a number from hunger, others suffocating after plunging into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the installation is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

This artwork also underscores the sharp divergence between the modern interpretation of power as a resource to be utilized for gain and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of energy as an innate life force in creatures, humans, and the environment. The gallery's history as a industrial facility is connected to 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, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and way of life are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to protect your rights when the reasons are grounded in saving the world," Sara notes. "Extractivism has adopted the language of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find alternative ways to maintain practices of expenditure."

Individual Struggles

She and her relatives have personally conflicted with the national administration over its increasingly stringent rules on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's brother embarked on a series of finally failed legal cases over the forced culling of his animals, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a extended series of creations called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge drape of 400 reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For many Sámi, creative work seems the sole realm in which they can be listened to by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|