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Guests to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They have basked under an simulated sun, descended down helter skelters, and seen AI-powered jellyfish floating through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this immense space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a winding construction based on the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Upon entering, they can stroll around or unwind on skins, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors sharing narratives and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It could sound quirky, but the installation pays tribute to a obscure natural marvel: experts have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, helping the animal to thrive in harsh Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "creates a perception of insignificance that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." She is a former journalist, young adult author, and environmental activist, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that creates the possibility to change your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The winding design is among various features in Sara's immersive exhibition honoring the heritage, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They've faced discrimination, cultural suppression, and suppression of their language by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the work also draws attention to the people's challenges associated with the global warming, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Materials

On the extended entrance ramp, there's a towering, 26-meter formation of reindeer hides ensnared by utility lines. It represents a metaphor for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this section of the installation, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, in which dense sheets of ice form as fluctuating conditions thaw and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' primary winter food, fungus. Goavvi is a result of climate change, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Far North than in other regions.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and joined Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they transported trailers of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to distribute through labor. These animals surrounded round us, pawing the slippery ground in futility for lichen-covered morsels. This costly and labour-intensive method is having a severe effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. However the other option is death. When such conditions become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—a number from starvation, others drowning after sinking in water bodies through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the installation is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

This artwork also highlights the sharp contrast between the industrial view of energy as a resource to be utilized for gain and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of life force as an inherent life force in creatures, people, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be exemplars for sustainable power, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi argue their legal protections, ways of life, and traditions are at risk. "It's challenging being such a small minority to protect your rights when the arguments are grounded in global sustainability," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has adopted the language of ecology, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to maintain patterns of use."

Individual Challenges

She and her relatives have personally conflicted with the national administration over its ever-stricter regulations on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's sibling initiated a set of finally failed court actions over the forced culling of his herd, apparently to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara developed a multi-year collection of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi including a massive curtain of numerous reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it resides in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Awareness

For numerous Indigenous people, visual expression is the exclusive sphere in which they can be listened to by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|