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Visitors to the renowned gallery are used to surprising encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, slid down helter skelters, and observed automated jellyfish hovering through the air. But this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a labyrinthine structure based on the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose airways. Upon entering, they can stroll around or chill out on skins, listening on headphones to community leaders sharing stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It may sound quirky, but the exhibit pays tribute to a little-known scientific wonder: scientists have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it breathes in by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to endure in extreme Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "produces a perception of insignificance that you as a individual are not superior over nature." Sara is a former writer, children's author, and land defender, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that fosters the chance to change your viewpoint or spark some modesty," she states.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The winding installation is among various features in Sara's absorbing art project showcasing the heritage, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total about 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They have experienced persecution, cultural suppression, and eradication of their dialect by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the art also spotlights the group's challenges relating to the environmental emergency, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Symbolism in Components

On the extended access ramp, there's a towering, 26-meter structure of pelts ensnared by electrical wires. It serves as a symbol for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this section of the installation, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, wherein thick sheets of ice appear as fluctuating temperatures liquefy and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' main winter sustenance, lichen. This phenomenon is a result of global heating, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than globally.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they transported containers of food pellets on to the exposed frozen landscape to dispense by hand. The reindeer crowded round us, digging the frozen ground in vain for lichen-covered morsels. This resource-intensive and demanding procedure is having a significant impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. But the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are dying—some from lack of food, others drowning after plunging into lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the work is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The installation also emphasizes the clear contrast between the industrial understanding of energy as a commodity to be harnessed for gain and existence and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an natural essence in animals, humans, and nature. This venue's past as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by regional governments. As they strive to be exemplars for sustainable power, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, water power facilities, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their human rights, livelihoods, and way of life are endangered. "It's hard being such a small minority to stand your ground when the justifications are grounded in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has adopted the language of ecology, but nonetheless it's just striving to find more suitable ways to persist in habits of use."

Individual Struggles

Sara and her family have personally disagreed with the state authorities over its ever-stricter rules on herding. A few years ago, Sara's brother initiated a series of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the forced culling of his herd, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a four-year set of artworks titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive drape of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017 event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the entryway.

Art as Activism

For many Sámi, art seems the exclusive realm in which they can be listened to by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|