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Guests to the renowned gallery are used to surprising displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an artificial sun, descended down amusement rides, and observed automated jellyfish hovering through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nasal chambers of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this immense space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a winding construction based on the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Inside, they can stroll around or relax on skins, listening on earphones to Sámi elders imparting tales and insights.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It could seem whimsical, but the artwork celebrates a rarely recognized natural marvel: scientists have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it takes in by eighty degrees, helping the animal to endure in extreme Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "produces a feeling of smallness that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." She is a ex- journalist, children's author, and environmental activist, who comes from a herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that generates the chance to alter your perspective or trigger some humility," she adds.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The maze-like structure is one of several features in Sara's engaging art project celebrating the heritage, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They have endured discrimination, cultural suppression, and suppression of their tongue by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the work also draws attention to the people's challenges connected to the global warming, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Components

On the lengthy entrance incline, there's a towering, 26-meter formation of skins ensnared by power and light cables. It serves as a metaphor for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this part of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, in which solid layers of ice develop as fluctuating conditions melt and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' key winter food, lichen. The condition is a result of global heating, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than in other regions.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they transported carts of food pellets on to the barren frozen landscape to provide through labor. The herd crowded round us, digging the icy ground in futility for vegetative morsels. This expensive and demanding procedure is having a severe impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. But the choice is malnutrition. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are dying—a number from lack of food, others drowning after sinking in lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the installation is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

This artwork also highlights the clear contrast between the industrial view of power as a commodity to be utilized for gain and survival and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an innate power in animals, individuals, and nature. The gallery's past as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be exemplars for clean sources, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and way of life are endangered. "It's challenging being such a limited population to defend yourself when the justifications are rooted in saving the world," Sara observes. "Extractivism has appropriated the rhetoric of ecology, but still it's just striving to find more suitable ways to continue practices of use."

Family Conflicts

Sara and her family have personally conflicted with the national administration over its increasingly stringent regulations on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's brother initiated a sequence of finally failed lawsuits over the required reduction of his animals, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara produced a extended series of creations called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge screen of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

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