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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, descended down helter skelters, and seen automated jellyfish floating through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the detailed nasal passages of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this huge space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a labyrinthine design modeled after the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal airways. Upon entering, they can meander around or relax on pelts, listening on headphones to tribal seniors sharing stories and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why choose the nasal structure? It might sound playful, but the installation celebrates a obscure biological feat: scientists have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the animal to survive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "produces a feeling of smallness that you as a person are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- writer, children's author, and land defender, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that creates the potential to shift your perspective or trigger some modesty," she continues.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The winding installation is part of a features in Sara's absorbing exhibition showcasing the heritage, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They have experienced discrimination, forced assimilation, and repression of their tongue by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the art also highlights the group's struggles connected to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Components

At the extended access slope, there's a towering, 26-metre structure of skins entangled by utility lines. It can be read as a metaphor for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this component of the installation, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, in which solid layers of ice develop as changing temperatures melt and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' primary cold-season nourishment, moss. Goavvi is a outcome of planetary warming, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than elsewhere.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they hauled carts of supplementary feed on to the barren Arctic plains to distribute by hand. The herd gathered round us, pawing the icy ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered morsels. This resource-intensive and laborious procedure is having a drastic impact on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the choice is starvation. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are dying—a number from hunger, others submerging after falling into streams through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the work is a memorial to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The installation also highlights the stark difference between the modern interpretation of power as a commodity to be utilized for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an innate essence in creatures, people, and land. This venue's history as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. As they strive to be standard bearers for clean sources, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their human rights, livelihoods, and culture are threatened. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the reasons are rooted in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Extractivism has co-opted the rhetoric of ecology, but still it's just striving to find alternative ways to persist in patterns of use."

Personal Struggles

The artist and her family have themselves conflicted with the national administration over its tightening policies on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's brother undertook a set of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a four-year set of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi including a huge drape of numerous reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Activism

Among the community, creative work seems the only realm in which they can be listened to by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|