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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, slid down helter skelters, and witnessed robotic sea creatures drifting through the air. However this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the complex nose passages of a reindeer. The newest artistic project for this immense space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a maze-like construction inspired by the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Once inside, they can wander around or unwind on reindeer hides, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders imparting stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It might sound quirky, but the artwork celebrates a obscure 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 takes in by 80°C, enabling the creature to endure in harsh Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "generates a perception of inferiority that you as a human being are not superior over nature." She is a former writer, young adult author, and land defender, who hails from a herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that generates the possibility to change your outlook or evoke some modesty," she adds.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The maze-like design is among various components in Sara's immersive exhibition celebrating the heritage, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have faced persecution, forced assimilation, and suppression of their tongue by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the work also spotlights the group's struggles associated with the global warming, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Materials

Along the lengthy entrance slope, there's a towering, 26-metre sculpture of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It represents a symbol for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this section of the artwork, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein solid coatings of ice appear as fluctuating conditions thaw and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary cold-season food, moss. The condition is a outcome of climate change, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Far North than globally.

A few years back, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and joined Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they carried trailers of supplementary feed on to the exposed Arctic plains to dispense through labor. The herd gathered round us, pawing the icy ground in vain for mossy morsels. This costly and labour-intensive procedure is having a drastic impact on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the choice is starvation. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others submerging after falling into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the installation is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

This artwork also highlights the clear difference between the modern view of energy as a asset to be utilized for profit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an innate life force in creatures, humans, and nature. This venue's past as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be leaders for renewable energy, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and traditions are threatened. "It's challenging being such a small minority to defend yourself when the reasons are rooted in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Mining practices has appropriated the rhetoric of sustainability, but still it's just striving to find better ways to persist in patterns of expenditure."

Individual Challenges

The artist and her family have themselves conflicted with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent regulations on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's sibling initiated a series of unsuccessful lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara developed a extended series of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge drape of numerous reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it resides in the entryway.

Art as Activism

For numerous Indigenous people, art is the only domain in which they can be understood by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|