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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to unusual displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an simulated sun, descended down helter skelters, and observed AI-powered sea creatures floating through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nose cavities of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this huge space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a winding design modeled after the expanded inside of a reindeer's nose airways. Inside, they can stroll around or relax on skins, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders sharing narratives and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It might appear whimsical, but the installation celebrates a rarely recognized biological feat: researchers have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it takes in by 80°C, enabling the creature to endure in harsh Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "produces a feeling of insignificance that you as a individual are not in control over nature." She is a former journalist, young adult author, and environmental activist, who is from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Possibly that generates the chance to change your viewpoint or spark some humbleness," she adds.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine installation is part of a elements in Sara's engaging commission showcasing the traditions, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count about 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They've experienced persecution, integration policies, and repression of their dialect by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the installation also highlights the group's challenges associated with the climate crisis, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Elements

Along the lengthy access ramp, there's a looming, 26-meter structure of reindeer hides trapped by electrical wires. It serves as a symbol for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this section of the installation, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, whereby dense coatings of ice develop as varying weather liquefy and refreeze the snow, locking in the reindeers' key cold-season sustenance, fungus. Goavvi is a outcome of global heating, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than globally.

A few years back, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and went with Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they transported carts of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured tundra to provide through labor. The herd gathered round us, pawing the slippery ground in vain attempts for mossy pieces. This expensive and laborious procedure is having a severe effect on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are succumbing—some from starvation, others submerging after plunging into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the art is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The sculpture also emphasizes the stark contrast between the western interpretation of power as a commodity to be exploited for profit and existence and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an innate power in animals, individuals, and nature. This venue's past as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be leaders for sustainable power, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, river barriers, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and traditions are threatened. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the justifications are based on saving the world," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has adopted the discourse of ecology, but yet it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to continue patterns of use."

Family Struggles

Sara and her relatives have themselves clashed with the Norwegian government over its tightening policies on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's brother undertook a set of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara developed a multi-year set of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal curtain of numerous animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the entryway.

Art as Activism

For many Sámi, art appears the exclusive sphere in which they can be listened to by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|