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Visitors to the renowned gallery are used to surprising experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have basked under an man-made sun, glided down spiral slides, and seen automated jellyfish drifting through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be engaging themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this cavernous space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a maze-like design based on the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Inside, they can stroll around or unwind on pelts, tuning in on earphones to tribal seniors sharing narratives and insights.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It might sound quirky, but the installation pays tribute to a rarely recognized scientific wonder: researchers have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it inhales by eighty degrees, helping the animal to endure in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "creates a feeling of insignificance that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- writer, writer for kids, and land defender, who comes from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that creates the potential to change your viewpoint or evoke some humility," she states.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine design is part of a components in Sara's immersive commission honoring the heritage, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They've faced oppression, forced assimilation, and eradication of their dialect by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the work also highlights the people's issues relating to the climate crisis, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Symbolism in Elements

On the extended access incline, there's a towering, 26-meter sculpture of reindeer hides entangled by utility lines. It represents a symbol for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this part of the artwork, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, wherein dense coatings of ice appear as changing temperatures thaw and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' main winter nourishment, fungus. The condition is a consequence of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and went with Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they hauled trailers of animal nutrition on to the exposed frozen landscape to dispense through labor. These animals gathered round us, pawing the frozen ground in vain for lichen-covered pieces. This costly and laborious method is having a severe effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the alternative is death. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—some from lack of food, others suffocating after plunging into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the installation is a tribute to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

This artwork also underscores the stark contrast between the western view of energy as a asset to be exploited for gain and existence and the Sámi outlook of energy as an natural power in creatures, individuals, and nature. This venue's history as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be exemplars for renewable energy, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their human rights, livelihoods, and traditions are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the arguments are grounded in saving the world," Sara notes. "Extractivism has co-opted the rhetoric of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find alternative ways to maintain patterns of consumption."

Personal Struggles

She and her kin have themselves clashed with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent policies on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's sibling undertook a sequence of finally failed court actions over the required reduction of his animals, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara produced a extended collection of creations named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal screen of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

Among the community, visual expression appears the sole realm in which they can be understood by people of other nations. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|