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Guests to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, slid down amusement rides, and observed automated jellyfish floating through the air. However this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nose passages of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a winding structure inspired by the expanded interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Once inside, they can wander around or unwind on pelts, listening on earphones to Sámi elders imparting narratives and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It might sound playful, but the artwork pays tribute to a obscure natural marvel: researchers have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the incoming air it breathes in by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to survive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "generates a sense of insignificance that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." She is a former reporter, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who is from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that generates the potential to alter your outlook or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The maze-like design is part of a elements in Sara's immersive art project honoring the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number about 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They have experienced discrimination, cultural suppression, and eradication of their tongue by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the work also spotlights the people's struggles associated with the climate crisis, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Meaning in Elements

On the lengthy access incline, there's a looming, 26-metre formation of reindeer hides ensnared by electrical wires. It serves as a symbol for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this section of the installation, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, wherein dense sheets of ice form as fluctuating weather melt and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary winter sustenance, moss. Goavvi is a outcome of climate change, which is taking place up to four times faster in the Far North than in other regions.

Previously, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured tundra to distribute through labor. The herd gathered round us, pawing the slippery ground in futility for lichen-covered pieces. This costly and laborious method is having a drastic influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. However the alternative is starvation. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—a number from starvation, others submerging after sinking in streams through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the installation is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The sculpture also emphasizes the stark contrast between the industrial understanding of power as a commodity to be harnessed for profit and existence and the Sámi worldview of life force as an innate essence in creatures, humans, and the environment. The gallery's past as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by regional governments. In their efforts to be standard bearers for clean sources, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their legal protections, livelihoods, and way of life are at risk. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the reasons are rooted in saving the world," Sara observes. "Mining practices has adopted the discourse of environmentalism, but still it's just aiming to find alternative ways to persist in patterns of expenditure."

Individual Struggles

She and her family have personally conflicted with the national administration over its increasingly stringent policies on herding. A few years ago, Sara's brother undertook a set of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the forced culling of his livestock, apparently to stop excessive feeding. To back him, Sara developed a four-year collection of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi including a huge curtain of numerous cranial remains, which was shown at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it resides in the lobby.

Art as Awareness

For numerous Indigenous people, visual expression seems the exclusive domain in which they can be listened to by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|