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Visitors to the renowned gallery are accustomed to surprising encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an artificial sun, glided down helter skelters, and seen AI-powered sea creatures floating through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this immense space—designed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a labyrinthine construction modeled after the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Inside, they can stroll around or chill out on pelts, listening on earphones to Sámi elders imparting tales and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It might appear quirky, but the installation pays tribute to a obscure natural marvel: researchers have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the creature to survive in harsh Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "generates a sense of inferiority that you as a individual are not superior over nature." She is a former writer, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who hails from a herding family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that generates the possibility to change your perspective or trigger some humbleness," she continues.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like design is among various elements in Sara's immersive commission celebrating the heritage, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They've endured oppression, forced assimilation, and suppression of their dialect by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi cosmology and founding narrative, the work also draws attention to the group's issues associated with the global warming, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Materials

On the lengthy entrance ramp, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot formation of skins entangled by power and light cables. It serves as a metaphor for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this section of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, wherein thick coatings of ice develop as varying conditions liquefy and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' key winter sustenance, fungus. This phenomenon is a outcome 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 went with Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they hauled trailers of animal nutrition on to the barren tundra to distribute manually. The herd gathered round us, scratching the icy ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered bits. This expensive and labour-intensive process is having a drastic influence on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. But the alternative is death. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from hunger, others submerging after sinking in lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the art is a monument to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm transporting the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

This artwork also highlights the clear divergence between the western view of electricity as a commodity to be exploited for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of life force as an inherent essence in animals, humans, and the environment. The gallery's past as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by regional governments. As they strive to be standard bearers for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their legal protections, livelihoods, and way of life are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the arguments are grounded in saving the world," Sara comments. "Extractivism has adopted the discourse of sustainability, but yet it's just aiming to find better ways to persist in habits of consumption."

Individual Conflicts

She and her family have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its tightening rules on herding. Previously, Sara's sibling embarked on a series of finally failed legal cases over the forced culling of his animals, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara developed a four-year collection of creations named Pile O'Sápmi including a huge drape of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it hangs in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Awareness

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