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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to unusual experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have basked under an man-made sun, glided down amusement rides, and seen AI-powered sea creatures hovering through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nasal passages of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this huge space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a maze-like design based on the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nose airways. Upon entering, they can meander around or relax on skins, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders telling tales and knowledge.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It might sound playful, but the exhibit pays tribute to a obscure biological feat: scientists have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it breathes in by 80°C, enabling the creature to survive in harsh Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "produces a feeling of inferiority that you as a human being are not in control over nature." The artist is a former writer, writer for kids, and land defender, who is from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that creates the potential to change your perspective or trigger some modesty," she states.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine design is part of a features in Sara's absorbing commission showcasing the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, cultural suppression, and suppression of their tongue by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi cosmology and founding narrative, the work also spotlights the people's issues associated with the global warming, property rights, and imperialism.

Meaning in Components

At the extended access ramp, there's a soaring, 26-metre sculpture of pelts ensnared by power and light cables. It can be read as a analogy for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this part of the exhibit, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, whereby dense sheets of ice develop as varying temperatures melt and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' main cold-season nourishment, lichen. The condition is a outcome of planetary warming, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and joined Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they transported containers of food pellets on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to provide by hand. The reindeer gathered round us, scratching the icy ground in vain attempts for vegetative bits. This expensive and labour-intensive procedure is having a drastic effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. However the alternative is death. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—a number from hunger, others submerging after sinking in water bodies through thinning ice sheets. On one level, the art is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

This artwork also underscores the sharp contrast between the industrial view of energy as a commodity to be exploited for profit and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of life force as an inherent essence in animals, humans, and land. This venue's past as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by regional governments. As they strive to be standard bearers for clean sources, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, water power facilities, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and culture are endangered. "It's hard being such a small minority to stand your ground when the reasons are grounded in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the rhetoric of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just striving to find more suitable ways to continue habits of consumption."

Personal Challenges

The artist and her family have personally disagreed with the national administration over its tightening regulations on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's brother undertook a set of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his livestock, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a extended series of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal screen of numerous animal bones, which was shown at the the show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the entryway.

Art as Awareness

For many Sámi, visual expression is the only sphere in which they can be listened to by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|