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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to unusual experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an artificial sun, slid down helter skelters, and witnessed AI-powered jellyfish floating through the air. But this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nasal chambers of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this cavernous space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a winding design inspired by the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal airways. Upon entering, they can stroll around or chill out on reindeer hides, listening on earphones to tribal seniors sharing stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It could seem quirky, but the artwork honors a little-known scientific wonder: scientists have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the incoming air it inhales by 80°C, enabling the creature to endure in harsh Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "creates a sense of smallness that you as a person are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- journalist, children's author, and land defender, who comes from a herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that generates the chance to shift your perspective or evoke some humility," she states.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The maze-like design is part of a elements in Sara's engaging art project showcasing the heritage, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They've endured oppression, integration policies, and eradication of their language by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the work also draws attention to the people's struggles associated with the global warming, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Meaning in Materials

Along the extended entry slope, there's a soaring, 26-metre formation of skins entangled by electrical wires. It serves as a metaphor for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this section of the exhibit, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, in which solid sheets of ice develop as varying weather liquefy and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' key winter sustenance, lichen. The condition is a consequence of climate change, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Far North than globally.

A few years back, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and went with Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they carried carts of supplementary feed on to the exposed frozen landscape to dispense manually. These animals surrounded round us, digging the icy ground in vain attempts for vegetative pieces. This costly and laborious process is having a drastic effect on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. Yet the choice is starvation. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are succumbing—a number from starvation, others drowning after plunging into streams through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the art is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

The sculpture also underscores the sharp contrast between the western view of electricity as a resource to be exploited for profit and existence and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an innate life force in animals, individuals, and the environment. The gallery's history as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by regional governments. In their efforts to be leaders for clean sources, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi contend their legal protections, incomes, and culture are at risk. "It's challenging being such a small minority to stand your ground when the arguments are based on saving the world," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the discourse of sustainability, but still it's just aiming to find better ways to maintain habits of use."

Personal Challenges

She and her family have themselves clashed with the national administration over its tightening rules on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's sibling initiated a sequence of finally failed lawsuits over the forced culling of his animals, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a multi-year collection of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a massive curtain of 400 reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the the event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it resides in the lobby.

Art as Awareness

For many Sámi, art is the sole realm in which they can be heard by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|