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Guests to the renowned gallery are accustomed to surprising encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They've basked under an simulated sun, slid down spiral slides, and observed AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. But this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nose chambers of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this immense space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a labyrinthine design based on the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Inside, they can meander around or unwind on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to Sámi elders imparting stories and knowledge.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It could appear whimsical, but the exhibit celebrates a obscure natural marvel: researchers have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the animal to endure in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "produces a sense of inferiority that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." Sara is a former reporter, writer for kids, and land defender, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that creates the possibility to change your viewpoint or evoke some humbleness," she continues.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The maze-like structure is one of several components in Sara's immersive commission honoring the traditions, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have faced discrimination, forced assimilation, and eradication of their language by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi cosmology and founding narrative, the installation also highlights the community's struggles connected to the climate crisis, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Meaning in Materials

On the extended access incline, there's a looming, 26-metre formation of pelts entangled by utility lines. It serves as a analogy for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this part of the installation, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, whereby thick sheets of ice appear as fluctuating weather thaw and refreeze the snow, locking in the reindeers' main winter sustenance, lichen. Goavvi is a outcome of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than globally.

Previously, I met with Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and joined Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured tundra to dispense through labor. The herd crowded round us, digging the frozen ground in vain for lichen-covered bits. This expensive and demanding procedure is having a severe impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. But the alternative is malnutrition. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from starvation, others suffocating after falling into streams through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the installation is a monument to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

This artwork also emphasizes the clear divergence between the modern understanding of energy as a commodity to be exploited for gain and survival and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an innate power in creatures, humans, and land. The gallery's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be leaders for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi contend their legal protections, livelihoods, and way of life are endangered. "It's hard being such a small minority to protect your rights when the arguments are grounded in saving the world," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the rhetoric of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just striving to find alternative ways to continue patterns of expenditure."

Individual Challenges

Sara and her family have personally disagreed with the national administration over its tightening policies on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's sibling initiated a series of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his herd, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara created a four-year set of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive drape of numerous animal bones, which was shown at the the event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entrance.

Art as Advocacy

For many Sámi, art is the only domain in which they can be listened to by people of other nations. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|