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Guests to the renowned gallery are accustomed to surprising experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an artificial sun, descended down helter skelters, and seen robotic jellyfish drifting through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose passages of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a labyrinthine structure inspired by the expanded interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Inside, they can stroll around or chill out on skins, tuning in on headphones to community leaders telling stories and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It could appear whimsical, but the artwork pays tribute to a little-known natural marvel: experts have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it inhales by eighty degrees, enabling the creature to endure in extreme Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "generates a feeling of insignificance that you as a human being are not in control over nature." Sara is a ex- writer, children's author, and environmental activist, who is from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that fosters the possibility to change your outlook or spark some humility," she states.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The winding structure is among various components in Sara's immersive art project celebrating the traditions, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number about 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They have experienced oppression, cultural suppression, and repression of their language by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the art also highlights the community's struggles connected to the global warming, property rights, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Components

Along the extended access slope, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot structure of skins ensnared by power and light cables. It serves as a analogy for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this part of the installation, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, in which solid sheets of ice develop as varying temperatures melt and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' main winter nourishment, fungus. The condition is a consequence of planetary warming, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than globally.

Previously, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they transported carts of food pellets on to the exposed frozen landscape to provide manually. The reindeer crowded round us, pawing the icy ground in futility for lichen-covered bits. This expensive and laborious procedure is having a drastic effect on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. But the alternative is starvation. When such conditions become commonplace, reindeer are succumbing—some from starvation, others submerging after falling into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the work is a memorial to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

This artwork also underscores the clear difference between the industrial view of energy as a commodity to be harnessed for gain and existence and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an natural life force in creatures, individuals, and nature. This venue's history as a industrial facility is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by regional governments. While attempting to be leaders for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, river barriers, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and way of life are at risk. "It's hard being such a limited population to protect your rights when the justifications are based on saving the world," Sara notes. "Mining practices has adopted the language of ecology, but still it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to persist in habits of use."

Individual Struggles

The artist and her relatives have personally conflicted with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent regulations on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's sibling initiated a set of unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his herd, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara created a four-year set of artworks titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal screen of 400 animal bones, which was exhibited at the the show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Awareness

Among the community, creative work appears the exclusive sphere in which they can be heard by people of other nations. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|