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Visitors to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an simulated sun, glided down spiral slides, and witnessed automated sea creatures hovering through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nose passages of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this immense space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a maze-like structure based on the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can wander around or unwind on pelts, tuning in on headphones to community leaders telling narratives and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It might appear whimsical, but the exhibit celebrates a obscure natural marvel: scientists have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it takes in by 80°C, allowing the animal to endure in harsh Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "produces a perception of insignificance that you as a human being are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- journalist, young adult author, and land defender, who comes from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that fosters the possibility to change your outlook or trigger some humbleness," she continues.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The maze-like structure is one of several features in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the heritage, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They've endured oppression, integration policies, and repression of their language by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the installation also draws attention to the people's issues relating to the climate crisis, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Meaning in Components

On the lengthy entrance slope, there's a towering, 26-metre formation of skins ensnared by utility lines. It can be read as a metaphor for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this section of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, whereby thick coatings of ice develop as varying conditions thaw and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' key winter food, lichen. This phenomenon is a consequence of global heating, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they carried carts of food pellets on to the barren frozen landscape to dispense by hand. These animals crowded round us, scratching the icy ground in vain attempts for mossy morsels. This resource-intensive and demanding process is having a drastic influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the other option is starvation. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from lack of food, others drowning after plunging into streams through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the installation is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Worldviews

This artwork also highlights the stark divergence between the industrial interpretation of power as a commodity to be exploited for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of life force as an innate essence in creatures, individuals, and nature. This venue's past as a industrial facility is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be exemplars for sustainable power, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi contend their legal protections, livelihoods, and way of life are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the reasons are based on global sustainability," Sara observes. "Extractivism has co-opted the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find alternative ways to maintain habits of consumption."

Personal Conflicts

The artist and her relatives have themselves clashed with the Norwegian government over its tightening regulations on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's sibling initiated a set of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his animals, apparently to stop excessive feeding. To back him, Sara created a multi-year series of creations called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive screen of 400 reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work seems the sole realm in which they can be listened to by people of other nations. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|