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Visitors to the renowned gallery are accustomed to surprising displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, slid down helter skelters, and seen AI-powered sea creatures floating through the air. Yet this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this cavernous space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a winding design inspired by the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Inside, they can wander around or relax on pelts, listening on headphones to tribal seniors telling narratives and insights.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It might seem playful, but the artwork honors a rarely recognized biological feat: scientists have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the animal to survive in extreme Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "produces a sense of inferiority that you as a individual are not superior over nature." She is a ex- journalist, children's author, and rights advocate, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that generates the chance to shift your viewpoint or trigger some humbleness," she continues.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The maze-like design is one of several features in Sara's engaging exhibition showcasing the culture, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, integration policies, and suppression of their dialect by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the work also spotlights the people's issues associated with the environmental emergency, property rights, and external control.

Symbolism in Materials

On the lengthy entry incline, there's a looming, 26-meter sculpture of skins ensnared by power and light cables. It can be read as a metaphor for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this section of the exhibit, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein dense coatings of ice develop as fluctuating conditions thaw and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary winter nourishment, fungus. This phenomenon is a consequence of planetary warming, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than globally.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and went with Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they transported carts of food pellets on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to dispense manually. The reindeer surrounded round us, digging the icy ground in vain attempts for mossy pieces. This expensive and demanding process is having a drastic impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the choice is starvation. When such conditions become commonplace, reindeer are succumbing—some from hunger, others drowning after falling into water bodies through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the work is a memorial to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

The installation also underscores the stark contrast between the modern understanding of energy as a commodity to be utilized for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of life force as an innate life force in animals, people, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be exemplars for clean sources, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, river barriers, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their human rights, livelihoods, and way of life are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the justifications are based on environmental protection," Sara observes. "Mining practices has co-opted the discourse of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to maintain patterns of consumption."

Personal Struggles

The artist and her family have personally conflicted with the national administration over its tightening policies on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's sibling embarked on a set of unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his herd, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. To back him, Sara produced a four-year series of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge drape of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the the show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it resides in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, art is the exclusive sphere in which they can be understood by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|