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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to surprising displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an simulated sun, glided down amusement rides, and seen AI-powered jellyfish drifting through the air. But this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal passages of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this cavernous space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a maze-like structure inspired by the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Once inside, they can wander around or relax on skins, listening on earphones to Sámi elders imparting stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It could sound playful, but the artwork pays tribute to a obscure natural marvel: experts have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it inhales by 80°C, enabling the animal to thrive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "creates a feeling of insignificance that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- reporter, young adult author, and environmental activist, who is from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that creates the potential to shift your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine design is among various elements in Sara's absorbing commission showcasing the traditions, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, cultural suppression, and repression of their dialect by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the work also highlights the community's struggles associated with the environmental emergency, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Symbolism in Components

Along the long entry incline, there's a soaring, 26-meter formation of reindeer hides entangled by electrical wires. It represents a symbol for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this part of the artwork, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, wherein thick coatings of ice develop as fluctuating conditions liquefy and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary winter food, lichen. The condition is a result of global heating, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Far North than in other regions.

A few years back, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they carried trailers of food pellets on to the exposed tundra to provide through labor. These animals gathered round us, pawing the frozen ground in futility for mossy morsels. This costly and demanding procedure is having a severe influence on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. Yet the other option is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are dying—a number from starvation, others submerging after falling into water bodies through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the art is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

The sculpture also highlights the clear contrast between the modern interpretation of electricity as a commodity to be harnessed for profit and survival and the Sámi outlook of energy as an inherent essence in animals, humans, and nature. This venue's history as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be leaders for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, water power facilities, and digging operations on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and traditions are endangered. "It's challenging being such a small minority to stand your ground when the justifications are rooted in saving the world," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the rhetoric of ecology, but yet it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to maintain patterns of use."

Personal Struggles

Sara and her relatives have themselves disagreed with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent policies on herding. Previously, Sara's brother undertook a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the forced culling of his livestock, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a four-year series of artworks titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal curtain of numerous cranial remains, which was displayed at the the event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Activism

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