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Visitors to the renowned gallery are familiar to unexpected experiences in its vast Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an simulated sun, glided down amusement rides, and witnessed robotic jellyfish hovering through the air. However this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nasal passages of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this cavernous space—developed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a maze-like construction inspired by the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nose airways. Once inside, they can meander around or unwind on pelts, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors telling narratives and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It might seem whimsical, but the exhibit celebrates a little-known natural marvel: scientists have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it inhales by 80°C, allowing the creature to endure in extreme Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "generates a feeling of smallness that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." Sara is a ex- writer, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who hails from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that generates the chance to shift your outlook or spark some humbleness," she states.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The winding design is part of a components in Sara's absorbing art project showcasing the traditions, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, forced assimilation, and repression of their dialect by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the work also draws attention to the people's struggles relating to the global warming, land dispossession, and external control.

Meaning in Materials

At the long entrance slope, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot sculpture of skins trapped by power and light cables. It can be read as a analogy for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this component of the exhibit, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, whereby dense layers of ice appear as fluctuating temperatures liquefy and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary cold-season nourishment, moss. The condition is a consequence of global heating, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and joined Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they transported containers of food pellets on to the wind-scoured tundra to provide manually. The reindeer gathered round us, pawing the slippery ground in vain for mossy bits. This costly and demanding process is having a drastic impact on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. However the other option is death. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are succumbing—some from lack of food, others drowning after plunging into streams through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the installation is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm transporting the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The sculpture also emphasizes the sharp difference between the western interpretation of power as a resource to be utilized for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi worldview of life force as an inherent essence in creatures, individuals, and land. The gallery's history as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be exemplars for renewable energy, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, river barriers, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and way of life are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to defend yourself when the reasons are rooted in environmental protection," Sara notes. "Extractivism has co-opted the language of ecology, but yet it's just striving to find more suitable ways to persist in patterns of consumption."

Family Challenges

The artist and her family have themselves disagreed with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent policies on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's brother embarked on a set of finally failed legal cases over the required reduction of his herd, apparently to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara created a four-year series of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal curtain of numerous animal bones, which was exhibited at the the event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it resides in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Activism

Among the community, art is the only realm in which they can be listened to by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|