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Guests to the renowned gallery are familiar to unexpected encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They've basked under an artificial sun, descended down amusement rides, and seen automated sea creatures hovering through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nose passages of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this huge space—created by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a maze-like construction based on the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Upon entering, they can meander around or unwind on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors sharing narratives and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It could appear playful, but the exhibit honors a little-known biological feat: scientists have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it breathes in by eighty degrees, helping the animal to endure in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "produces a perception of inferiority that you as a human being are not superior over nature." She is a former reporter, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who hails from a herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that generates the chance to shift your perspective or trigger some humbleness," she continues.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like installation is part of a elements in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the heritage, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They've experienced discrimination, integration policies, and eradication of their tongue by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the work also draws attention to the community's struggles associated with the climate crisis, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Materials

At the extended entrance ramp, there's a soaring, 26-metre structure of skins entangled by electrical wires. It can be read as a metaphor for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this section of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, whereby thick sheets of ice form as changing temperatures liquefy and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' main winter sustenance, fungus. The condition is a result of global heating, which is taking place up to four times faster in the Far North than globally.

A few years back, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they carried trailers of food pellets on to the barren Arctic plains to dispense through labor. These animals crowded round us, digging the icy ground in vain attempts for mossy bits. This costly and labour-intensive procedure is having a severe influence on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the alternative is malnutrition. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from lack of food, others drowning after sinking in water bodies through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the work is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

The installation also underscores the sharp contrast between the western view of power as a asset to be utilized for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an natural life force in animals, individuals, and the environment. This venue's past as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be standard bearers for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi assert their legal protections, incomes, and way of life are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to protect your rights when the arguments are grounded in saving the world," Sara notes. "Extractivism has co-opted the language of sustainability, but yet it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to maintain patterns of use."

Personal Challenges

The artist and her relatives have personally clashed with the national administration over its tightening policies on herding. In 2016, Sara's sibling initiated a sequence of unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his animals, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara developed a four-year set of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi including a huge drape of four hundred animal bones, which was displayed at the the show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it hangs in the lobby.

Art as Awareness

Among the community, creative work is the sole domain in which they can be understood by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|