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Visitors to the renowned gallery are accustomed to surprising experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an simulated sun, descended down amusement rides, and seen automated jellyfish drifting through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nose chambers of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this huge space—designed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a labyrinthine design inspired by the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Inside, they can stroll around or chill out on pelts, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders telling tales and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It could sound playful, but the exhibit pays tribute to a obscure natural marvel: researchers have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the animal to endure in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "generates a perception of insignificance that you as a person are not superior over nature." The artist is a former writer, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who is from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that creates the potential to change your viewpoint or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The winding design is one of several elements in Sara's absorbing exhibition honoring the culture, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They've endured persecution, integration policies, and eradication of their language by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the art also spotlights the group's issues relating to the environmental emergency, loss of territory, and external control.

Symbolism in Components

On the lengthy entry incline, there's a soaring, 26-meter structure of pelts trapped by electrical wires. It represents a symbol for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this component of the installation, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby dense sheets of ice form as fluctuating weather thaw and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' main cold-season food, lichen. This phenomenon is a consequence of climate change, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Far North than in other regions.

A few years back, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and went with Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they carried carts of food pellets on to the exposed Arctic plains to provide through labor. The herd surrounded round us, digging the frozen ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered bits. This expensive and labour-intensive process is having a severe impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. However the other option is starvation. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—some from starvation, others drowning after sinking in water bodies through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the art is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

This artwork also underscores the sharp divergence between the modern view of power as a commodity to be utilized for profit and survival and the Sámi outlook of life force as an natural power in creatures, humans, and nature. The gallery's history as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be exemplars for renewable energy, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and culture are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the arguments are rooted in global sustainability," Sara comments. "Extractivism has co-opted the rhetoric of environmentalism, but yet it's just striving to find more suitable ways to maintain habits of expenditure."

Personal Conflicts

She and her relatives have themselves clashed with the state authorities over its ever-stricter regulations on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's sibling undertook a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his livestock, apparently to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a extended set of artworks titled Pile O'Sápmi including a huge screen of 400 cranial remains, which was shown at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entrance.

Art as Awareness

For many Sámi, visual expression appears the sole sphere in which they can be heard by outsiders. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|