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Attendees to the renowned gallery are familiar to surprising displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have basked under an simulated sun, descended down helter skelters, and observed AI-powered jellyfish drifting through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nasal chambers of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this cavernous space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a labyrinthine structure based on the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Inside, they can meander around or relax on pelts, listening on headphones to community leaders sharing tales and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It may appear whimsical, but the exhibit pays tribute to a little-known natural marvel: researchers have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it inhales by eighty degrees, enabling the animal to survive in harsh Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "generates a sense of smallness that you as a individual are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- writer, young adult author, and rights advocate, who comes from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that generates the potential to shift your perspective or trigger some modesty," she adds.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine design is one of several components in Sara's absorbing art project showcasing the heritage, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number about 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They have experienced discrimination, integration policies, and suppression of their language by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the art also highlights the community's struggles connected to the climate crisis, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Materials

Along the long entrance ramp, there's a towering, 26-meter formation of pelts ensnared by power and light cables. It represents a symbol for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this section of the artwork, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein thick layers of ice appear as changing temperatures liquefy and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season nourishment, moss. This phenomenon is a outcome of climate change, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than globally.

Previously, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they transported trailers of supplementary feed on to the exposed Arctic plains to distribute manually. The reindeer surrounded round us, scratching the frozen ground in futility for mossy bits. This resource-intensive and demanding procedure is having a severe effect on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. Yet the other option is death. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from starvation, others drowning after falling into lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the work is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

The installation also underscores the sharp contrast between the modern interpretation of electricity as a resource to be exploited for profit and existence and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an natural life force in animals, individuals, and land. The gallery's history as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be exemplars for sustainable power, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, water power facilities, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and traditions are endangered. "It's challenging being such a small minority to defend yourself when the reasons are rooted in global sustainability," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the rhetoric of ecology, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find alternative ways to maintain habits of consumption."

Personal Conflicts

Sara and her relatives have themselves clashed with the Norwegian government over its tightening regulations on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's brother embarked on a set of unsuccessful legal cases over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara created a extended set of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal curtain of 400 cranial remains, which was exhibited at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Awareness

Among the community, visual expression appears the exclusive realm in which they can be listened to by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|