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Guests to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have basked under an simulated sun, descended down amusement rides, and witnessed robotic jellyfish drifting through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nasal passages of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this huge space—designed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a labyrinthine design inspired by the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Inside, they can wander around or relax on pelts, listening on earphones to Sámi elders telling stories and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It could seem whimsical, but the exhibit celebrates a little-known scientific wonder: researchers have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it takes in by 80°C, helping the animal to thrive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "creates a perception of smallness that you as a individual are not superior over nature." She is a former journalist, writer for kids, and land defender, who is from a herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that fosters the possibility to alter your perspective or spark some humility," she adds.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine design is part of a elements in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the traditions, knowledge, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They have experienced oppression, forced assimilation, and eradication of their dialect by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the installation also highlights the group's issues relating to the global warming, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Components

On the long entry slope, there's a looming, 26-metre sculpture of skins ensnared by utility lines. It represents a metaphor for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this component of the artwork, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, wherein solid layers of ice form as fluctuating conditions thaw and refreeze the snow, locking in the reindeers' main winter food, moss. The condition is a outcome of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than in other regions.

A few years back, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they carried carts of food pellets on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to provide manually. The reindeer surrounded round us, digging the frozen ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered pieces. This expensive and demanding procedure is having a severe effect on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the other option is starvation. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others suffocating after falling into streams through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the installation is a monument to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

This artwork also emphasizes the clear contrast between the western understanding of electricity as a asset to be harnessed for gain and existence and the Sámi worldview of energy as an natural power in animals, individuals, and land. This venue's history as a industrial facility is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by regional governments. In their efforts to be leaders for sustainable power, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, river barriers, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi assert their legal protections, ways of life, and way of life are at risk. "It's hard being such a small minority to stand your ground when the justifications are rooted in environmental protection," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the discourse of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to persist in habits of expenditure."

Family Challenges

Sara and her family have themselves disagreed with the national administration over its ever-stricter regulations on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's sibling initiated a series of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his herd, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara developed a multi-year series of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal drape of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the lobby.

Art as Awareness

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