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Attendees to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unexpected displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an simulated sun, slid down amusement rides, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. However this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nasal passages of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this cavernous space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a maze-like construction inspired by the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can meander around or chill out on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to Sámi elders sharing stories and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It could sound whimsical, but the exhibit honors a obscure scientific wonder: researchers have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the animal to survive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "generates a sense of insignificance that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- reporter, young adult author, and environmental activist, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that generates the chance to change your outlook or trigger some humility," she adds.

An Homage to Sámi Culture

The labyrinthine installation is part of a elements in Sara's immersive art project honoring the culture, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They've experienced discrimination, forced assimilation, and repression of their language by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the art also draws attention to the group's issues connected to the global warming, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Meaning in Components

At the lengthy entry ramp, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot sculpture of skins entangled by utility lines. It represents a symbol for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this section of the artwork, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which thick sheets of ice appear as varying temperatures thaw and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' main cold-season sustenance, moss. This phenomenon is a consequence of climate change, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the barren frozen landscape to dispense through labor. The reindeer gathered round us, digging the slippery ground in vain for lichen-covered morsels. This resource-intensive and laborious procedure is having a drastic impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the other option is malnutrition. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from starvation, others suffocating after sinking in streams through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the art is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The sculpture also highlights the sharp divergence between the western understanding of power as a resource to be exploited for profit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of energy as an natural life force in creatures, humans, and land. This venue's legacy as a industrial facility is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by regional governments. As they strive to be exemplars for clean sources, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their legal protections, livelihoods, and traditions are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to stand your ground when the arguments are grounded in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Mining practices has co-opted the discourse of ecology, but yet it's just striving to find better ways to maintain habits of use."

Family Challenges

She and her family have themselves clashed with the Norwegian government over its tightening policies on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's brother initiated a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his animals, apparently to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara created a four-year series of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi including a huge screen of numerous animal bones, which was exhibited at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

For many Sámi, art seems the sole domain in which they can be understood by outsiders. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|