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Attendees to the renowned gallery are accustomed to surprising encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an man-made sun, slid down helter skelters, and witnessed robotic sea creatures hovering through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this immense space—created by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes visitors into a labyrinthine structure modeled after the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Inside, they can wander around or chill out on reindeer hides, listening on earphones to community leaders imparting narratives and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It may appear quirky, but the installation pays tribute to a rarely recognized biological feat: experts have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the ambient air it inhales by eighty degrees, helping the creature to survive in harsh Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "creates a sense of inferiority that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." The artist is a former journalist, children's author, and rights advocate, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that creates the potential to change your outlook or spark some modesty," she adds.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The winding structure is one of several elements in Sara's immersive exhibition celebrating the heritage, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number about 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They've experienced discrimination, forced assimilation, and eradication of their language by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the installation also spotlights the community's challenges connected to the environmental emergency, property rights, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Materials

On the extended entry slope, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot sculpture of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It represents a metaphor for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this section of the installation, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, wherein thick coatings of ice develop as fluctuating temperatures melt and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season sustenance, lichen. Goavvi is a result of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than elsewhere.

Previously, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they carried containers of animal nutrition on to the exposed Arctic plains to provide through labor. The reindeer gathered round us, digging the slippery ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered morsels. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive method is having a drastic influence on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the choice is starvation. When such conditions become commonplace, reindeer are succumbing—a number from hunger, others drowning after sinking in lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the art is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The sculpture also underscores the clear difference between the modern understanding of energy as a asset to be exploited for profit and existence and the Sámi outlook of energy as an natural essence in creatures, people, and the environment. This venue's past as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by regional governments. While attempting to be exemplars for clean sources, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their legal protections, livelihoods, and traditions are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the justifications are based on saving the world," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has adopted the rhetoric of ecology, but yet it's just striving to find more suitable ways to continue habits of expenditure."

Individual Conflicts

The artist and her relatives have personally clashed with the state authorities over its ever-stricter rules on herding. In 2016, Sara's brother initiated a series of unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his livestock, apparently to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a multi-year set of creations called Pile O'Sápmi including a huge drape of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was displayed 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

Among the community, creative work seems the only sphere in which they can be heard by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|