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Visitors to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've basked under an artificial sun, glided down spiral slides, and observed AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nasal passages of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this immense space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a maze-like structure based on the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can wander around or unwind on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors telling stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It may seem playful, but the exhibit celebrates a little-known scientific wonder: scientists have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it inhales by eighty degrees, enabling the animal to endure in extreme Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "produces a sense of inferiority that you as a person are not in control over nature." She is a ex- writer, children's author, and environmental activist, who hails from a herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that generates the chance to change your viewpoint or spark some humbleness," she continues.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine installation is part of a components in Sara's immersive exhibition celebrating the traditions, knowledge, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They have experienced discrimination, integration policies, and suppression of their dialect by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the work also draws attention to the community's challenges connected to the climate crisis, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Elements

On the lengthy entry ramp, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot structure of pelts ensnared by power and light cables. It can be read as a metaphor for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this part of the artwork, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, whereby solid coatings of ice form as varying weather thaw and refreeze the snow, locking in the reindeers' main winter food, fungus. The condition is a outcome of planetary warming, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Far North than globally.

Previously, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they carried trailers of supplementary feed on to the barren frozen landscape to distribute through labor. The reindeer crowded round us, digging the icy ground in vain for lichen-covered pieces. This expensive and laborious procedure is having a significant impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. Yet the alternative is malnutrition. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are succumbing—a number from starvation, others submerging after falling into water bodies through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the art is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

The sculpture also emphasizes the clear difference between the industrial understanding of energy as a asset to be exploited for gain and existence and the Sámi worldview of life force as an inherent essence in creatures, people, and land. Tate Modern's history as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be standard bearers for renewable energy, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their legal protections, incomes, and culture are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to stand your ground when the justifications are grounded in saving the world," Sara notes. "Mining practices has adopted the rhetoric of ecology, but yet it's just attempting to find better ways to maintain habits of use."

Personal Challenges

The artist and her family have themselves clashed with the state authorities over its tightening regulations on herding. A few years ago, Sara's sibling initiated a sequence of finally failed lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. To back him, Sara produced a extended set of creations named Pile O'Sápmi including a massive screen of 400 reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it resides in the lobby.

Art as Activism

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work is the exclusive sphere in which they can be heard by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|