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Visitors to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unexpected encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an artificial sun, descended down helter skelters, and witnessed automated jellyfish hovering through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nose cavities of a reindeer. The newest artistic project for this huge space—designed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a maze-like construction modeled after the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Once inside, they can stroll around or chill out on pelts, tuning in on headphones to Sámi elders sharing tales and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It might sound playful, but the exhibit celebrates a obscure natural marvel: experts have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it inhales by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to endure in extreme Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "creates a perception of inferiority that you as a person are not in control over nature." Sara is a ex- journalist, children's author, and land defender, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that generates the possibility to alter your perspective or spark some modesty," she adds.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The labyrinthine structure is one of several elements in Sara's engaging exhibition showcasing the heritage, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They have endured discrimination, forced assimilation, and suppression of their language by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the installation also spotlights the people's struggles associated with the climate crisis, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Elements

On the lengthy entrance slope, there's a looming, 26-metre formation of pelts entangled by utility lines. It represents a symbol for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this part of the artwork, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, whereby solid sheets of ice form as fluctuating weather thaw and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' main cold-season food, fungus. Goavvi is a consequence of climate change, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than globally.

A few years back, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and went with Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they hauled containers of supplementary feed on to the exposed tundra to dispense manually. The reindeer surrounded round us, pawing the slippery ground in futility for lichen-covered morsels. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive method is having a severe impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. However the other option is death. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are succumbing—some from starvation, others drowning after falling into lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the work is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

This artwork also highlights the clear divergence between the modern view of electricity as a resource to be utilized for gain and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an inherent power in creatures, people, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by regional governments. As they strive to be standard bearers for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and traditions are at risk. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the reasons are based on saving the world," Sara comments. "Mining practices has co-opted the rhetoric of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find alternative ways to persist in habits of expenditure."

Family Conflicts

Sara and her family have personally conflicted with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter policies on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's sibling initiated a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a four-year series of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi including a huge drape of 400 cranial remains, which was displayed at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

Among the community, creative work is the sole sphere in which they can be listened to by outsiders. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|