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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to unusual displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an artificial sun, glided down helter skelters, and witnessed robotic jellyfish floating through the air. Yet this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nasal passages of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this immense space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a winding structure modeled after the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Inside, they can meander around or unwind on skins, tuning in on headphones to community leaders imparting narratives and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It may seem playful, but the exhibit honors a little-known biological feat: researchers have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it breathes in by eighty degrees, allowing the creature to thrive in harsh Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "produces a perception of smallness that you as a human being are not in control over nature." She is a ex- writer, young adult author, and rights advocate, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that fosters the chance to alter your perspective or trigger some humbleness," she states.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine installation is one of several elements in Sara's engaging exhibition celebrating the culture, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi total about 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They've experienced persecution, integration policies, and suppression of their tongue by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the installation also draws attention to the group's issues connected to the climate crisis, loss of territory, and external control.

Metaphor in Components

At the extended entrance incline, there's a towering, 26-meter structure of reindeer hides ensnared by power and light cables. It serves as a metaphor for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this section of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, wherein solid layers of ice form as fluctuating conditions thaw and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' key cold-season food, lichen. This phenomenon is a outcome of global heating, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than elsewhere.

Previously, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they transported carts of food pellets on to the wind-scoured tundra to provide by hand. The herd gathered round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain for lichen-covered morsels. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive procedure is having a drastic impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. But the other option is death. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from lack of food, others submerging after sinking in water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the installation is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The installation also underscores the clear divergence between the modern understanding of power as a resource to be utilized for gain and existence and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an innate essence in animals, individuals, and nature. The gallery's past as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be standard bearers for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, river barriers, and digging operations on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and traditions are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to defend yourself when the reasons are based on environmental protection," Sara notes. "Mining practices has co-opted the discourse of environmentalism, but still it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to persist in patterns of expenditure."

Family Conflicts

The artist and her family have themselves conflicted with the state authorities over its ever-stricter regulations on herding. Previously, Sara's sibling embarked on a set of unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his animals, apparently to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara produced a multi-year set of creations called Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal curtain of four hundred cranial remains, which was exhibited at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it hangs in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

For many Sámi, visual expression seems the exclusive sphere in which they can be listened to by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|