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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an artificial sun, slid down amusement rides, and seen AI-powered sea creatures floating through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nose cavities of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this huge space—developed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a maze-like design based on the expanded inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can meander around or unwind on skins, tuning in on headphones to community leaders imparting stories and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It might seem whimsical, but the exhibit pays tribute to a little-known scientific wonder: scientists have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it breathes in by eighty degrees, helping the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "creates a sense of inferiority that you as a person are not in control over nature." Sara is a former reporter, young adult author, and land defender, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that generates the chance to alter your viewpoint or trigger some humbleness," she states.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like installation is one of several elements in Sara's absorbing exhibition showcasing the heritage, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They have faced discrimination, forced assimilation, and eradication of their tongue by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the art also draws attention to the people's challenges connected to the environmental emergency, property rights, and colonialism.

Meaning in Materials

On the extended entry incline, there's a looming, 26-meter formation of pelts ensnared by power and light cables. It serves as a metaphor for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this part of the installation, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby solid sheets of ice develop as varying conditions melt and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' key cold-season food, moss. Goavvi is a consequence of climate change, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than in other regions.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in freezing temperatures as they transported trailers of food pellets on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to provide by hand. These animals gathered round us, scratching the icy ground in vain for lichen-covered morsels. This costly and labour-intensive process is having a significant effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. But the choice is starvation. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are dying—some from hunger, others suffocating after falling into water bodies through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the installation is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Worldviews

The sculpture also underscores the stark difference between the western interpretation of electricity as a asset to be harnessed for economic benefit and survival and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an inherent life force in creatures, humans, and the environment. The gallery's past as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by regional governments. In their efforts to be leaders for renewable energy, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, river barriers, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and traditions are at risk. "It's challenging being such a limited population to defend yourself when the justifications are rooted in environmental protection," Sara comments. "Mining practices has appropriated the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just striving to find alternative ways to maintain patterns of consumption."

Personal Challenges

She and her kin have personally conflicted with the state authorities over its tightening rules on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's sibling undertook a series of unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara produced a four-year set of creations named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal screen of numerous cranial remains, which was exhibited at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Awareness

Among the community, visual expression seems the only realm in which they can be understood by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|