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Attendees to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unusual displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've basked under an artificial sun, glided down spiral slides, and seen AI-powered jellyfish drifting through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose cavities of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this immense space—designed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a labyrinthine construction based on the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal airways. Once inside, they can meander around or chill out on pelts, tuning in on headphones to community leaders imparting stories and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why choose the nasal structure? It may appear whimsical, but the installation celebrates a little-known biological feat: researchers have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the ambient air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, helping the creature to endure in inhospitable Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "creates a perception of smallness that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and land defender, who is from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that generates the possibility to change your outlook or trigger some humility," she adds.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like structure is among various elements in Sara's engaging art project celebrating the traditions, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They have experienced discrimination, forced assimilation, and eradication of their language by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the work also highlights the community's challenges associated with the global warming, land dispossession, and external control.

Meaning in Components

On the extended entry ramp, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot sculpture of pelts ensnared by power and light cables. It serves as a symbol for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this part of the installation, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby solid layers of ice form as varying conditions melt and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' main cold-season nourishment, lichen. Goavvi is a outcome of global heating, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than globally.

Previously, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and went with Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they hauled trailers of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to distribute by hand. The herd surrounded round us, digging the frozen ground in vain attempts for mossy pieces. This costly and labour-intensive process is having a severe influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. However the alternative is death. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from hunger, others drowning after plunging into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the installation is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

This artwork also underscores the sharp difference between the modern view of energy as a commodity to be exploited for profit and existence and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an innate life force in animals, individuals, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be exemplars for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the construction of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi argue their human rights, livelihoods, and culture are threatened. "It's hard being such a small minority to protect your rights when the arguments are based on saving the world," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the discourse of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to continue habits of consumption."

Individual Conflicts

She and her family have personally disagreed with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent policies on herding. Previously, Sara's brother embarked on a sequence of finally failed legal cases over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. To back him, Sara produced a four-year set of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge curtain of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was shown at the the event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the lobby.

Art as Advocacy

Among the community, art appears the sole domain in which they can be understood by outsiders. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|