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Visitors to the renowned gallery are accustomed to surprising displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They have basked under an artificial sun, slid down spiral slides, and seen robotic sea creatures drifting through the air. But this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nose chambers of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this immense space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a maze-like structure modeled after the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Upon entering, they can wander around or relax on pelts, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders imparting tales and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It might appear quirky, but the artwork honors a little-known biological feat: researchers have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it takes in by 80°C, enabling the animal to survive in harsh Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "produces a perception of insignificance that you as a person are not in control over nature." She is a former reporter, children's author, and environmental activist, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that fosters the potential to shift your viewpoint or spark some modesty," she states.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like structure is part of a elements in Sara's engaging exhibition honoring the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count about 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They have experienced oppression, cultural suppression, and suppression of their dialect by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the work also spotlights the people's issues associated with the climate crisis, land dispossession, and external control.

Meaning in Elements

Along the lengthy access incline, there's a towering, 26-meter sculpture of skins entangled by utility lines. It represents a symbol for the societal frameworks limiting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this section of the installation, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, whereby thick coatings of ice form as changing conditions melt and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary cold-season nourishment, fungus. Goavvi is a result of planetary warming, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Polar region than in other regions.

A few years back, I met with 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 wind-scoured frozen landscape to provide manually. The reindeer crowded round us, scratching the icy ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered pieces. This expensive and labour-intensive method is having a drastic influence on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. Yet the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—some from lack of food, others submerging after sinking in streams through thinning ice sheets. On one level, the work is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm transporting the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

This artwork also highlights the sharp contrast between the western interpretation of power as a commodity to be harnessed for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an natural power in animals, humans, and the environment. The gallery's history as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be standard bearers for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and culture are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to defend yourself when the arguments are rooted in environmental protection," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has adopted the rhetoric of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find better ways to persist in habits of use."

Family Struggles

The artist and her family have themselves disagreed with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent rules on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's sibling initiated a series of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his herd, apparently to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a four-year set of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a massive drape of 400 reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Awareness

Among the community, creative work seems the sole domain in which they can be heard by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|