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Visitors to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unexpected encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an man-made sun, slid down amusement rides, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures hovering through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nasal passages of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this immense space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a labyrinthine structure based on the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Once inside, they can stroll around or relax on reindeer hides, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders imparting tales and knowledge.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It might seem playful, but the installation celebrates a little-known natural marvel: experts have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it takes in by 80°C, allowing the animal to endure in extreme Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "creates a perception of inferiority that you as a human being are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- reporter, young adult author, and rights advocate, who is from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that creates the potential to change your viewpoint or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The labyrinthine design is part of a elements in Sara's immersive commission celebrating the heritage, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They have endured oppression, forced assimilation, and eradication of their tongue by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the art also spotlights the people's issues connected to the climate crisis, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Materials

Along the long access ramp, there's a looming, 26-meter sculpture of skins ensnared by power and light cables. It serves as a analogy for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this component of the installation, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, wherein dense layers of ice appear as varying conditions thaw and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' main winter food, moss. The condition is a outcome of global heating, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than in other regions.

Previously, I visited Sara in a remote town during a icy season and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in freezing temperatures as they carried containers of animal nutrition on to the exposed Arctic plains to distribute by hand. The reindeer crowded round us, digging the icy ground in vain for mossy pieces. This resource-intensive and laborious method is having a significant influence on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the choice is starvation. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are dying—some from hunger, others submerging after plunging into streams through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the art is a monument to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

The installation also highlights the stark divergence between the western view of electricity as a asset to be exploited for gain and existence and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an natural essence in animals, people, and the environment. The gallery's past as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be leaders for clean sources, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi assert their legal protections, incomes, and way of life are endangered. "It's hard being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the arguments are rooted in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Mining practices has co-opted the language of ecology, but yet it's just striving to find more suitable ways to persist in patterns of consumption."

Personal Conflicts

Sara and her kin have personally disagreed with the state authorities over its tightening regulations on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's brother initiated a set of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. To back him, Sara created a multi-year series of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi including a huge drape of four hundred cranial remains, which was shown at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it hangs in the entrance.

Art as Activism

For many Sámi, creative work seems the exclusive sphere in which they can be understood by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|