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Guests to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unusual displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an simulated sun, slid down spiral slides, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures hovering through the air. Yet this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this huge space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a maze-like design based on the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Once inside, they can stroll around or chill out on skins, tuning in on headphones to community leaders imparting stories and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It might seem playful, but the artwork pays tribute to a little-known natural marvel: researchers have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the animal to endure in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "produces a feeling of insignificance that you as a person are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- reporter, young adult author, and environmental activist, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that creates the potential to shift your perspective or trigger some humility," she adds.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The winding design is among various elements in Sara's absorbing commission honoring the traditions, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have experienced oppression, integration policies, and suppression of their tongue by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the installation also highlights the group's issues associated with the environmental emergency, property rights, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Materials

At the lengthy entrance incline, there's a soaring, eighty-five-foot formation of skins ensnared by electrical wires. It serves as a metaphor for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this component of the exhibit, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, in which thick sheets of ice develop as varying conditions melt and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary winter nourishment, fungus. Goavvi is a consequence of climate change, which is happening up to four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions.

A few years back, I met with Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they carried containers of supplementary feed on to the barren Arctic plains to dispense by hand. The reindeer gathered round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain attempts for mossy morsels. This costly and laborious method is having a severe effect on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the choice is starvation. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from lack of food, others drowning after falling into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the work is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

The sculpture also emphasizes the stark contrast between the modern interpretation of power as a asset to be harnessed for profit and survival and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an inherent essence in animals, people, and the environment. The gallery's history as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation by Nordic countries. While attempting to be standard bearers for clean sources, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, river barriers, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi contend their legal protections, livelihoods, and traditions are threatened. "It's challenging being such a limited population to defend yourself when the justifications are rooted in saving the world," Sara observes. "Mining practices has appropriated the discourse of environmentalism, but yet it's just aiming to find alternative ways to persist in patterns of expenditure."

Personal Conflicts

The artist and her kin have personally clashed with the national administration over its ever-stricter regulations on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's brother initiated a set of unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, apparently to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara developed a multi-year set of creations named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge screen of 400 reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it hangs in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, visual expression appears the sole domain in which they can be heard by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|