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Visitors to the renowned gallery are accustomed to surprising encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an simulated sun, glided down amusement rides, and witnessed automated sea creatures hovering through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nose passages of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this immense space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes visitors into a maze-like design inspired by the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can meander around or unwind on pelts, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors imparting stories and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It may appear whimsical, but the artwork honors a little-known natural marvel: researchers have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it takes in by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to thrive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "generates a sense of inferiority that you as a person are not dominant over nature." Sara is a former reporter, young adult author, and rights advocate, who is from a herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that creates the possibility to shift your viewpoint or trigger some humility," she continues.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine design is among various elements in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the traditions, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They've experienced oppression, forced assimilation, and eradication of their language by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the installation also spotlights the people's challenges connected to the global warming, land dispossession, and external control.

Symbolism in Components

Along the lengthy access ramp, there's a looming, 26-metre structure of reindeer hides entangled by power and light cables. It represents a analogy for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this component of the artwork, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, in which thick coatings of ice develop as varying weather thaw and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary cold-season food, lichen. The condition is a result of planetary warming, which is taking place up to four times faster in the Far North than elsewhere.

Previously, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and went with Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in freezing temperatures as they carried trailers of supplementary feed on to the exposed tundra to dispense by hand. The reindeer crowded round us, digging the icy ground in vain attempts for vegetative pieces. This costly and laborious process is having a severe impact on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. Yet the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—a number from hunger, others suffocating after sinking in water bodies through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the art is a memorial to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

The installation also emphasizes the stark divergence between the modern understanding of energy as a commodity to be utilized for gain and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of energy as an innate life force in animals, humans, and nature. This venue's history as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. As they strive to be leaders for sustainable power, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their legal protections, incomes, and way of life are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to defend yourself when the justifications are grounded in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the rhetoric of environmentalism, but yet it's just striving to find alternative ways to maintain patterns of consumption."

Individual Conflicts

Sara and her kin have personally conflicted with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter policies on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's sibling undertook a set of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his livestock, apparently to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara produced a multi-year set of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a massive drape of numerous cranial remains, which was exhibited at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Activism

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work is the sole domain in which they can be understood by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|