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Guests to the renowned gallery are used to surprising displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They have basked under an simulated sun, slid down amusement rides, and observed AI-powered jellyfish floating through the air. However this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nose passages of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this cavernous space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a labyrinthine construction modeled after the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal airways. Once inside, they can wander around or unwind on skins, tuning in on headphones to community leaders sharing narratives and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It may appear quirky, but the artwork pays tribute to a rarely recognized scientific wonder: experts have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it inhales by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to survive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "produces a feeling of inferiority that you as a person are not dominant over nature." She is a former writer, children's author, and environmental activist, who hails from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that creates the possibility to shift your viewpoint or spark some modesty," she continues.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine structure is one of several elements in Sara's immersive commission showcasing the culture, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have experienced oppression, integration policies, and eradication of their tongue by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the installation also highlights the group's challenges connected to the environmental emergency, property rights, and imperialism.

Meaning in Elements

Along the long access ramp, there's a soaring, eighty-five-foot sculpture of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It can be read as a metaphor for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this component of the installation, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, whereby solid sheets of ice develop as varying temperatures liquefy and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season food, moss. The condition is a consequence of climate change, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than globally.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and joined Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they carried trailers of supplementary feed on to the barren frozen landscape to dispense manually. The herd gathered round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain attempts for vegetative bits. This costly and demanding procedure is having a drastic effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. Yet the choice is starvation. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are succumbing—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after plunging into streams through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the work is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The sculpture also emphasizes the clear divergence between the western interpretation of electricity as a commodity to be exploited for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of energy as an inherent essence in animals, individuals, and land. This venue's legacy as a industrial facility is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by Nordic countries. As they strive to be exemplars for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and way of life are at risk. "It's hard being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the reasons are grounded in saving the world," Sara notes. "Mining practices has adopted the discourse of ecology, but yet it's just attempting to find better ways to maintain patterns of consumption."

Individual Challenges

Sara and her family have themselves clashed with the national administration over its increasingly stringent policies on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's sibling embarked on a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, apparently to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara developed a extended series of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi including a huge curtain of four hundred cranial remains, which was shown at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it hangs in the lobby.

Creative Expression as Awareness

For many Sámi, creative work is the sole realm in which they can be understood by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|