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Attendees to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unusual displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an artificial sun, slid down spiral slides, and seen robotic sea creatures floating through the air. However this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose chambers of a reindeer. The newest artistic project for this cavernous space—created by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a maze-like construction based on the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Once inside, they can wander around or relax on pelts, tuning in on earphones to tribal seniors telling stories and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It may sound whimsical, but the exhibit honors a rarely recognized biological feat: researchers have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the ambient air it takes in by 80°C, allowing the creature to endure in extreme Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "produces a perception of smallness that you as a person are not superior over nature." The artist is a former writer, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who comes from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that generates the potential to shift your perspective or spark some humbleness," she continues.

An Homage to Sámi Culture

The maze-like design is part of a features in Sara's engaging commission honoring the heritage, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They have experienced oppression, forced assimilation, and repression of their language by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the work also highlights the people's issues associated with the environmental emergency, property rights, and imperialism.

Symbolism in Components

On the lengthy entry incline, there's a soaring, eighty-five-foot sculpture of skins trapped by power and light cables. It can be read as a analogy for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this component of the installation, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby solid sheets of ice develop as changing temperatures liquefy and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' main winter food, moss. The condition is a result of climate change, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Far North than in other regions.

A few years back, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they carried carts of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to dispense manually. These animals crowded round us, scratching the icy ground in futility for lichen-covered morsels. This expensive and demanding method is having a severe effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the other option is death. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are dying—a number from lack of food, others drowning after sinking in streams through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the installation is a monument to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

This artwork also highlights the stark divergence between the modern interpretation of energy as a commodity to be utilized for gain and survival and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an natural essence in creatures, people, and nature. This venue's past as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be leaders for clean sources, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, water power facilities, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and culture are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to stand your ground when the reasons are rooted in saving the world," Sara observes. "Extractivism has appropriated the rhetoric of sustainability, but yet it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to persist in patterns of expenditure."

Individual Challenges

Sara and her relatives have themselves conflicted with the national administration over its ever-stricter regulations on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's brother initiated a series of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his animals, apparently to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara developed a extended collection of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal screen of 400 cranial remains, which was displayed at the the show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Creative Expression as Activism

For many Sámi, creative work appears the exclusive domain in which they can be understood by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|