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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have basked under an simulated sun, descended down amusement rides, and witnessed robotic jellyfish drifting through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nasal cavities of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a winding design modeled after the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Inside, they can stroll around or unwind on skins, listening on earphones to tribal seniors sharing stories and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It might appear playful, but the installation celebrates a little-known natural marvel: researchers have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it inhales by 80°C, helping the animal to survive in extreme Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "creates a perception of smallness that you as a person are not superior over nature." The artist is a ex- journalist, children's author, and environmental activist, who is from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that fosters the possibility to shift your perspective or trigger some humility," she adds.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The maze-like structure is part of a components in Sara's absorbing art project showcasing the heritage, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They've endured oppression, cultural suppression, and eradication of their tongue by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the art also draws attention to the people's challenges relating to the climate crisis, property rights, and external control.

Metaphor in Components

Along the long access incline, there's a soaring, eighty-five-foot sculpture of pelts entangled by electrical wires. It represents a analogy for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this component of the installation, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein solid sheets of ice form as changing weather melt and refreeze the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary winter sustenance, fungus. Goavvi is a consequence of global heating, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in freezing temperatures as they carried carts of food pellets on to the wind-scoured tundra to dispense manually. The herd crowded round us, digging the slippery ground in futility for lichen-covered bits. This resource-intensive and demanding procedure is having a drastic influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. However the alternative is starvation. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are perishing—some from starvation, others submerging after sinking in water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the art is a monument to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The sculpture also underscores the sharp difference between the western understanding of energy as a commodity to be exploited for gain and survival and the Sámi worldview of energy as an natural power in creatures, humans, and land. This venue's past as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be leaders for renewable energy, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and traditions are endangered. "It's challenging being such a small minority to protect your rights when the arguments are grounded in global sustainability," Sara comments. "Extractivism has adopted the discourse of ecology, but nonetheless it's just striving to find better ways to maintain habits of expenditure."

Family Conflicts

Sara and her kin have personally clashed with the national administration over its tightening regulations on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's sibling embarked on a series of unsuccessful legal cases over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, supposedly to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara created a multi-year series of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge curtain of numerous reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Art as Advocacy

Among the community, visual expression seems the sole realm in which they can be listened to by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|