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Guests to the renowned gallery are used to unusual experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an man-made sun, slid down spiral slides, and witnessed automated jellyfish hovering through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal passages of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this cavernous space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a winding design based on the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Inside, they can meander around or unwind on pelts, listening on headphones to Sámi elders telling narratives and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It may appear playful, but the exhibit celebrates a little-known biological feat: researchers have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the ambient air it inhales by eighty degrees, helping the creature to endure in harsh Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "generates a sense of smallness that you as a human being are not in control over nature." Sara is a former journalist, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who comes from a herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that fosters the potential to alter your perspective or trigger some humbleness," she continues.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine design is among various components in Sara's absorbing exhibition celebrating the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They've endured persecution, cultural suppression, and repression of their dialect by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the work also spotlights the community's struggles connected to the climate crisis, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Materials

At the extended entry slope, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot formation of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It can be read as a metaphor for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this section of the artwork, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, whereby dense coatings of ice appear as fluctuating temperatures melt and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' main cold-season food, lichen. This phenomenon is a consequence of planetary warming, which is happening up to four times faster in the Polar region than in other regions.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and joined Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they carried carts of food pellets on to the wind-scoured tundra to provide by hand. The reindeer surrounded round us, scratching the slippery ground in vain for mossy bits. This costly and demanding procedure is having a drastic effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are succumbing—some from lack of food, others drowning after plunging into streams through thinning ice sheets. On one level, the art is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

The sculpture also highlights the stark difference between the modern interpretation of power as a commodity to be utilized for gain and survival and the Sámi outlook of energy as an natural power in animals, individuals, and the environment. This venue's past as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be exemplars for sustainable power, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, river barriers, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi contend their human rights, livelihoods, and culture are endangered. "It's challenging being such a small minority to defend yourself when the justifications are rooted in saving the world," Sara observes. "Mining practices has appropriated the discourse of sustainability, but yet it's just striving to find better ways to persist in practices of consumption."

Individual Challenges

Sara and her relatives have themselves conflicted with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent rules on herding. In 2016, Sara's sibling embarked on a set of finally failed legal cases over the forced culling of his herd, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. To back him, Sara produced a four-year set of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi including a huge screen of numerous reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it hangs in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

Among the community, creative work is the sole sphere in which they can be listened to by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|