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Guests to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unusual displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an simulated sun, slid down spiral slides, and observed AI-powered sea creatures floating through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal chambers of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this immense space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a labyrinthine structure based on the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Inside, they can wander around or unwind on skins, tuning in on headphones to community leaders telling tales and insights.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It might sound whimsical, but the installation celebrates a obscure biological feat: scientists have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it inhales by eighty degrees, enabling the animal to endure in harsh Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "creates a perception of inferiority that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." She is a ex- journalist, young adult author, and environmental activist, who comes from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that fosters the chance to change your perspective or spark some humbleness," she continues.

An Homage to Sámi Culture

The labyrinthine design is among various features in Sara's engaging commission showcasing the heritage, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They've endured persecution, cultural suppression, and suppression of their language by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the installation also highlights the community's challenges connected to the climate crisis, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Meaning in Components

At the extended entry slope, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot formation of reindeer hides trapped by utility lines. It serves as a symbol for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this component of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby solid coatings of ice appear as varying temperatures melt and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary winter sustenance, moss. Goavvi is a outcome of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than in other regions.

A few years back, I visited Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and went with Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they transported trailers of animal nutrition on to the exposed frozen landscape to distribute by hand. The herd crowded round us, digging the frozen ground in futility for vegetative morsels. This expensive and laborious procedure is having a drastic effect on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the alternative is starvation. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—a number from starvation, others suffocating after falling into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the work is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The sculpture also underscores the stark contrast between the industrial view of power as a resource to be harnessed for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an natural essence in creatures, humans, and nature. This venue's history as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be standard bearers for renewable energy, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and culture are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to protect your rights when the reasons are rooted in global sustainability," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the discourse of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find better ways to continue habits of expenditure."

Individual Struggles

The artist and her family have personally clashed with the national administration over its ever-stricter regulations on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's brother embarked on a sequence of unsuccessful court actions over the forced culling of his animals, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a multi-year collection of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive drape of numerous animal bones, which was shown at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it resides in the entryway.

Art as Activism

For many Sámi, visual expression is the only domain in which they can be heard by people of other nations. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|