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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, slid down spiral slides, and seen robotic sea creatures hovering through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nose chambers of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this cavernous space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a maze-like construction based on the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Upon entering, they can wander around or relax on skins, listening on earphones to Sámi elders telling stories and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It may seem whimsical, but the exhibit pays tribute to a little-known scientific wonder: scientists have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it inhales by 80°C, enabling the creature to endure in extreme Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "creates a sense of insignificance that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." Sara is a former reporter, young adult author, and environmental activist, who hails from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that creates the potential to shift your viewpoint or evoke some humbleness," she states.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The winding installation is part of a components in Sara's engaging exhibition honoring the heritage, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They've experienced oppression, integration policies, and eradication of their tongue by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the installation also spotlights the group's issues associated with the environmental emergency, property rights, and external control.

Symbolism in Materials

At the lengthy entrance ramp, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot formation of reindeer hides ensnared by power and light cables. It can be read as a metaphor for the societal frameworks limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this part of the exhibit, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, whereby thick coatings of ice develop as fluctuating conditions thaw and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' key winter nourishment, moss. This phenomenon is a consequence of climate change, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than in other regions.

Previously, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they hauled carts of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to provide manually. These animals crowded round us, scratching the icy ground in vain attempts for vegetative morsels. This expensive and demanding process is having a significant effect on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. Yet the alternative is death. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are succumbing—a number from hunger, others drowning after plunging into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the work is a monument to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

The sculpture also emphasizes the clear difference between the western understanding of electricity as a commodity to be utilized for gain and existence and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an natural essence in animals, people, and land. The gallery's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be leaders for renewable energy, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, river barriers, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and traditions are endangered. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the reasons are rooted in global sustainability," Sara comments. "Extractivism has adopted the discourse of sustainability, but yet it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to continue patterns of consumption."

Personal Conflicts

Sara and her family have personally clashed with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent regulations on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's brother undertook a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful legal cases over the required reduction of his livestock, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara produced a extended set of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi including a massive curtain of 400 cranial remains, which was shown at the the event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Art as Advocacy

For many Sámi, art is the only realm in which they can be understood by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|