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Guests to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unusual experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an simulated sun, descended down amusement rides, and witnessed automated jellyfish floating through the air. But this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose passages of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this immense space—designed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a winding design based on the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal airways. Inside, they can meander around or unwind on pelts, listening on headphones to tribal seniors telling stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It might seem quirky, but the exhibit honors a little-known biological feat: scientists have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it breathes in by 80°C, helping the animal to endure in extreme Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "produces a feeling of smallness that you as a person are not in control over nature." The artist is a ex- writer, children's author, and land defender, who is from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that creates the potential to change your perspective or trigger some humility," she adds.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine design is one of several elements in Sara's absorbing commission celebrating the traditions, knowledge, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They've endured persecution, forced assimilation, and suppression of their language by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the work also draws attention to the people's challenges associated with the environmental emergency, property rights, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Materials

At the extended access slope, there's a soaring, 26-metre sculpture of skins trapped by utility lines. It serves as a metaphor for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this component of the artwork, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, wherein solid coatings of ice form as changing weather melt and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' primary winter food, moss. Goavvi is a result of climate change, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than globally.

A few years back, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they hauled containers of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to provide through labor. The herd gathered round us, pawing the icy ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered morsels. This expensive and labour-intensive method is having a severe effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. But the alternative is death. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are perishing—some from starvation, others drowning after sinking in water bodies through thinning ice sheets. On one level, the art is a memorial to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

The sculpture also emphasizes the clear difference between the industrial interpretation of electricity as a resource to be utilized for profit and survival and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an innate life force in creatures, people, and land. The gallery's legacy as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by regional governments. In their efforts to be exemplars for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi argue their human rights, ways of life, and traditions are threatened. "It's hard being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the arguments are grounded in saving the world," Sara notes. "Mining practices has appropriated the discourse of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just striving to find more suitable ways to persist in practices of expenditure."

Family Challenges

The artist and her family have themselves clashed with the national administration over its tightening rules on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's sibling initiated a sequence of unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his herd, apparently to stop excessive feeding. To back him, Sara created a extended series of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal screen of four hundred animal bones, which was exhibited at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it hangs in the lobby.

Art as Activism

For numerous Indigenous people, art seems the only realm in which they can be listened to by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|