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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an simulated sun, descended down helter skelters, and witnessed AI-powered jellyfish drifting through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nasal chambers of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this immense space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a winding structure based on the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Once inside, they can wander around or relax on pelts, tuning in on earphones to tribal seniors imparting stories and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It could sound quirky, but the installation honors a little-known biological feat: researchers have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it inhales by 80°C, enabling the animal to endure in extreme Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "generates a feeling of inferiority that you as a human being are not in control over nature." She is a former journalist, children's author, and environmental activist, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that creates the potential to shift your viewpoint or spark some modesty," she states.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The maze-like structure is part of a elements in Sara's engaging exhibition celebrating the heritage, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They've experienced oppression, cultural suppression, and eradication of their dialect by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the installation also draws attention to the group's struggles connected to the global warming, property rights, and external control.

Meaning in Materials

At the extended entry ramp, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot sculpture of skins trapped by utility lines. It represents a metaphor for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this section of the installation, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein thick layers of ice develop as changing weather thaw and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary cold-season nourishment, fungus. The condition is a result of planetary warming, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than elsewhere.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a icy season and accompanied Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the barren Arctic plains to distribute manually. The reindeer crowded round us, pawing the frozen ground in vain for mossy pieces. This expensive and labour-intensive method is having a drastic impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the other option is malnutrition. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are dying—some from starvation, others drowning after sinking in lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the work is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Worldviews

The installation also underscores the clear difference between the western interpretation of energy as a resource to be harnessed for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of life force as an natural life force in creatures, humans, and the environment. The gallery's history as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be exemplars for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi contend their legal protections, ways of life, and traditions are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to defend yourself when the arguments are rooted in global sustainability," Sara comments. "Mining practices has appropriated the language of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find better ways to maintain practices of consumption."

Family Challenges

She and her relatives have personally clashed with the state authorities over its ever-stricter rules on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's brother initiated a sequence of unsuccessful legal cases over the required reduction of his livestock, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara developed a multi-year set of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge screen of numerous cranial remains, which was shown at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work is the only sphere in which they can be understood by people of other nations. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|