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Attendees to the renowned gallery are familiar to surprising experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an simulated sun, slid down amusement rides, and witnessed robotic sea creatures floating through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be engaging themselves in the detailed nose chambers of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes visitors into a labyrinthine construction modeled after the expanded interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can meander around or relax on pelts, tuning in on headphones to community leaders sharing stories and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It could appear quirky, but the artwork honors a little-known natural marvel: researchers have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it takes in by eighty degrees, helping the animal to endure in extreme Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "produces a feeling of insignificance that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." Sara is a ex- writer, young adult author, and rights advocate, who hails from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that fosters the chance to alter your viewpoint or trigger some humbleness," she adds.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like installation is among various features in Sara's immersive commission honoring the heritage, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They've endured oppression, cultural suppression, and suppression of their dialect by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the art also draws attention to the people's challenges associated with the global warming, property rights, and external control.

Metaphor in Materials

On the long entry slope, there's a soaring, 26-metre formation of reindeer hides ensnared by power and light cables. It serves as a analogy for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this part of the exhibit, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, wherein solid coatings of ice appear as changing conditions thaw and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' main winter sustenance, lichen. Goavvi is a outcome of global heating, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than in other regions.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a icy season and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they carried trailers of supplementary feed on to the exposed tundra to dispense by hand. These animals crowded round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain for lichen-covered bits. This expensive and demanding process is having a severe influence on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. However the other option is death. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from hunger, others suffocating after sinking in lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the work is a monument to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

This artwork also emphasizes the stark contrast between the western interpretation of energy as a commodity to be harnessed for economic benefit and survival and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an innate life force in creatures, humans, and land. The gallery's history as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by regional governments. In their efforts to be leaders for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, river barriers, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi contend their legal protections, livelihoods, and way of life are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the reasons are grounded in environmental protection," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the rhetoric of ecology, but still it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to maintain practices of use."

Individual Struggles

The artist and her family have themselves disagreed with the state authorities over its ever-stricter policies on herding. Previously, Sara's sibling embarked on a set of finally failed court actions over the required reduction of his animals, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. To back him, Sara created a four-year collection of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive curtain of four hundred cranial remains, which was exhibited at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the entrance.

Art as Activism

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