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Guests to the renowned gallery are familiar to unusual experiences in its vast Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, descended down helter skelters, and witnessed AI-powered jellyfish floating through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be engaging themselves in the complex nasal passages of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this cavernous space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a maze-like structure modeled after the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Once inside, they can meander around or chill out on pelts, tuning in on earphones to community leaders telling narratives and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It could sound playful, but the artwork honors a obscure natural marvel: scientists have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it inhales by eighty degrees, enabling the animal to thrive in harsh Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "creates a perception of inferiority that you as a individual are not superior over nature." The artist is a ex- journalist, young adult author, and environmental activist, who comes from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that fosters the chance to change your outlook or evoke some humbleness," she continues.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The winding structure is among various components in Sara's immersive exhibition showcasing the traditions, knowledge, and worldview of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They've experienced discrimination, integration policies, and repression of their tongue by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the work also highlights the people's struggles associated with the global warming, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Components

At the long access ramp, there's a towering, 26-meter sculpture of skins entangled by utility lines. It serves as a analogy for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this component of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, whereby thick layers of ice develop as changing weather liquefy and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary winter food, moss. This phenomenon is a consequence of global heating, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Far North than in other regions.

Previously, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they hauled containers of food pellets on to the barren frozen landscape to provide by hand. The reindeer crowded round us, pawing the icy ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered pieces. This expensive and demanding procedure is having a significant impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. But the other option is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others submerging after falling into streams through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the installation is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The sculpture also highlights the stark difference between the industrial understanding of power as a resource to be harnessed for economic benefit and survival and the Sámi outlook of life force as an natural life force in animals, people, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a industrial facility is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be standard bearers for sustainable power, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the construction of windfarms, river barriers, and digging operations on their ancestral land; the Sámi contend their legal protections, ways of life, and culture are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the arguments are based on global sustainability," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the discourse of sustainability, but still it's just attempting to find alternative ways to continue patterns of expenditure."

Family Challenges

The artist and her kin have personally conflicted with the Norwegian government over its tightening regulations on herding. A few years ago, Sara's sibling embarked on a series of finally failed lawsuits over the forced culling of his animals, supposedly to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara produced a multi-year collection of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge screen of numerous animal bones, which was shown at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it resides in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For many Sámi, art appears the exclusive domain in which they can be listened to by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|