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Visitors to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unusual encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an man-made sun, slid down amusement rides, and witnessed AI-powered jellyfish drifting through the air. However this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the complex nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this cavernous space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a labyrinthine structure based on the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Inside, they can stroll around or chill out on skins, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors sharing stories and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It might seem quirky, but the artwork celebrates a obscure scientific wonder: experts have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it breathes in by 80°C, allowing the animal to endure in extreme Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "generates a perception of smallness that you as a individual are not superior over nature." She is a ex- writer, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that generates the chance to shift your perspective or evoke some modesty," she adds.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine design is among various components in Sara's immersive art project celebrating the heritage, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, cultural suppression, and repression of their dialect by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the installation also draws attention to the group's struggles connected to the global warming, loss of territory, and external control.

Symbolism in Materials

On the extended entry ramp, there's a soaring, 26-meter structure of skins trapped by utility lines. It serves as a symbol for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this part of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby thick coatings of ice appear as fluctuating temperatures melt and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season food, lichen. Goavvi is a result of planetary warming, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than globally.

Previously, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and went with Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they carried trailers of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to provide by hand. The herd surrounded round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain for lichen-covered bits. This expensive and demanding process is having a severe influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. Yet the alternative is starvation. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—some from hunger, others drowning after sinking in water bodies through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the work is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

This artwork also highlights the clear difference between the western view of power as a commodity to be exploited for profit and survival and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an inherent life force in creatures, humans, and nature. This venue's legacy as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be standard bearers for clean sources, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and way of life are at risk. "It's hard being such a small minority to protect your rights when the justifications are rooted in global sustainability," Sara comments. "Extractivism has appropriated the rhetoric of environmentalism, but yet it's just aiming to find alternative ways to maintain habits of consumption."

Family Struggles

She and her family have themselves conflicted with the state authorities over its tightening regulations on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's sibling embarked on a series of finally failed court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara created a extended collection of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal screen of four hundred cranial remains, which was shown at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it hangs in the entryway.

Art as Awareness

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work seems the exclusive realm in which they can be listened to by people of other nations. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|