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Attendees to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unexpected encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've basked under an man-made sun, descended down spiral slides, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures floating through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nasal chambers of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this cavernous space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a winding structure modeled after the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Once inside, they can wander around or relax on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to community leaders imparting stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It may appear whimsical, but the installation honors a rarely recognized biological feat: experts have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it breathes in by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to thrive in extreme Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "creates a sense of insignificance that you as a person are not in control over nature." Sara is a former reporter, young adult author, and rights advocate, who is from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that generates the potential to change your outlook or trigger some modesty," she continues.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like installation is part of a features in Sara's immersive commission celebrating the heritage, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number about 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They have endured discrimination, forced assimilation, and eradication of their dialect by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the work also highlights the community's challenges associated with the climate crisis, land dispossession, and external control.

Symbolism in Materials

Along the extended access ramp, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot formation of reindeer hides trapped by electrical wires. It can be read as a symbol for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this section of the installation, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, wherein thick layers of ice develop as varying temperatures liquefy and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' main cold-season nourishment, fungus. This phenomenon is a result of planetary warming, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than in other regions.

A few years back, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they hauled trailers of food pellets on to the wind-scoured tundra to provide through labor. The reindeer crowded round us, scratching the frozen ground in futility for vegetative morsels. This resource-intensive and laborious procedure is having a significant influence on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. But the other option is death. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are dying—a number from lack of food, others submerging after plunging into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the art is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm transporting the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The sculpture also highlights the stark contrast between the industrial interpretation of power as a resource to be harnessed for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an inherent life force in animals, individuals, and nature. The gallery's past as a industrial facility is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be exemplars for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and traditions are endangered. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the justifications are rooted in saving the world," Sara observes. "Extractivism has adopted the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find better ways to maintain habits of use."

Personal Challenges

She and her kin have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter policies on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's sibling undertook a set of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the forced culling of his herd, supposedly to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara created a multi-year collection of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal screen of 400 cranial remains, which was exhibited at the the show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For many Sámi, creative work seems the only realm in which they can be understood by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|