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Guests to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unexpected encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an man-made sun, slid down amusement rides, and seen automated sea creatures floating through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nose chambers of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this huge space—created by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a labyrinthine structure modeled after the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal airways. Inside, they can meander around or unwind on skins, listening on headphones to tribal seniors imparting narratives and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It could appear quirky, but the artwork celebrates a little-known biological feat: researchers have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it inhales by 80°C, enabling the creature to survive in harsh Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "produces a perception of inferiority that you as a human being are not in control over nature." Sara is a former reporter, writer for kids, and land defender, who comes from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that fosters the potential to shift your perspective or trigger some humbleness," she adds.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine design is among various components in Sara's engaging commission showcasing the heritage, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They've faced discrimination, cultural suppression, and suppression of their language by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the installation also draws attention to the people's struggles connected to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and external control.

Metaphor in Components

At the long access ramp, there's a soaring, 26-meter formation of reindeer hides ensnared by electrical wires. It represents a metaphor for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this part of the exhibit, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, wherein solid sheets of ice appear as fluctuating temperatures liquefy and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' key winter nourishment, lichen. The condition is a outcome of planetary warming, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Polar region than in other regions.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they transported containers of food pellets on to the barren Arctic plains to dispense by hand. The reindeer crowded round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain for vegetative morsels. This expensive and laborious process is having a drastic impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. However the other option is malnutrition. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are succumbing—a number from hunger, others drowning after sinking in water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the installation is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

The sculpture also underscores the stark difference between the western interpretation of electricity as a asset to be harnessed for gain and survival and the Sámi worldview of life force as an inherent life force in creatures, humans, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a industrial facility is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be standard bearers for renewable energy, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their human rights, livelihoods, and traditions are threatened. "It's hard being such a limited population to stand your ground when the arguments are based on saving the world," Sara comments. "Extractivism has co-opted the rhetoric of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find better ways to persist in habits of use."

Individual Struggles

The artist and her relatives have themselves clashed with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter policies on herding. In 2016, Sara's brother initiated a set of finally failed court actions over the forced culling of his herd, apparently to stop excessive feeding. To back him, Sara produced a extended set of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a massive drape of numerous cranial remains, which was exhibited at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, art appears the exclusive realm in which they can be heard by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|