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Attendees to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unexpected encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an artificial sun, glided down helter skelters, and witnessed robotic jellyfish drifting through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the detailed nose passages of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this cavernous space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a labyrinthine structure modeled after the expanded interior of a reindeer's nasal airways. Once inside, they can meander around or relax on skins, listening on earphones to Sámi elders sharing tales and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It might appear playful, but the exhibit celebrates a obscure scientific wonder: experts have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it breathes in by 80°C, enabling the animal to thrive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "generates a feeling of inferiority that you as a human being are not in control over nature." She is a ex- journalist, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who hails from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that generates the possibility to alter your perspective or spark some modesty," she continues.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine structure is one of several features in Sara's immersive art project celebrating the traditions, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number about 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They have endured discrimination, cultural suppression, and eradication of their language by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the installation also draws attention to the community's struggles associated with the climate crisis, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Components

Along the long entrance incline, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot structure of skins ensnared by electrical wires. It serves as a metaphor for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this part of the artwork, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, whereby solid coatings of ice form as changing temperatures melt and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' main winter food, lichen. The condition is a consequence of climate change, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than in other regions.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they hauled trailers of animal nutrition on to the barren Arctic plains to provide by hand. These animals gathered round us, digging the frozen ground in futility for mossy pieces. This resource-intensive and laborious method is having a drastic impact on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. But the choice is death. When such conditions become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others drowning after plunging into lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the work is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

This artwork also highlights the stark contrast between the industrial understanding of power as a resource to be utilized for gain and existence and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an natural power in animals, people, and nature. This venue's legacy as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be exemplars for clean sources, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, river barriers, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi contend their legal protections, livelihoods, and way of life are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the justifications are rooted in saving the world," Sara observes. "Extractivism has appropriated the rhetoric of environmentalism, but still it's just striving to find more suitable ways to maintain habits of expenditure."

Individual Struggles

The artist and her kin have personally disagreed with the national administration over its ever-stricter rules on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's brother undertook a series of unsuccessful legal cases over the required reduction of his herd, apparently to stop excessive feeding. To back him, Sara developed a extended set of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi including a huge curtain of numerous reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017 event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it resides in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For many Sámi, creative work appears the only domain in which they can be listened to by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|