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Guests to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unusual encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an man-made sun, glided down helter skelters, and observed robotic sea creatures drifting through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nasal chambers of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this immense space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a winding design modeled after the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Once inside, they can stroll around or relax on skins, listening on headphones to community leaders telling tales and knowledge.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It might appear whimsical, but the artwork pays tribute to a obscure natural marvel: experts have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, helping the creature to survive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "generates a sense of inferiority that you as a person are not superior over nature." The artist is a former writer, young adult author, and land defender, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that generates the possibility to change your outlook or spark some humbleness," she adds.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The maze-like design is among various components in Sara's absorbing commission showcasing the heritage, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They've faced oppression, integration policies, and suppression of their tongue by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi cosmology and founding narrative, the installation also spotlights the community's challenges connected to the environmental emergency, property rights, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Elements

At the extended entrance ramp, there's a looming, 26-metre structure of reindeer hides ensnared by electrical wires. It can be read as a analogy for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this part of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, wherein solid coatings of ice appear as varying weather thaw and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' main winter nourishment, fungus. This phenomenon is a result of climate change, which is happening up to four times faster in the Polar region than in other regions.

A few years back, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they carried containers of food pellets on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to distribute manually. The reindeer gathered round us, digging the frozen ground in vain for vegetative pieces. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive procedure is having a severe impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. But the other option is malnutrition. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others submerging after sinking in lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the installation is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The sculpture also emphasizes the stark difference between the industrial understanding of energy as a commodity to be exploited for profit and survival and the Sámi worldview of life force as an natural life force in animals, individuals, and the environment. Tate Modern's past as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Nordic countries. As they strive to be leaders for sustainable power, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their human rights, incomes, and traditions are at risk. "It's hard being such a limited population to protect your rights when the justifications are grounded in global sustainability," Sara comments. "Extractivism has appropriated the rhetoric of sustainability, but still it's just aiming to find better ways to maintain patterns of consumption."

Individual Challenges

The artist and her relatives have personally disagreed with the Norwegian government over its tightening regulations on herding. A few years ago, Sara's sibling initiated a set of unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his animals, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara created a four-year set of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive curtain of numerous reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the entryway.

Art as Awareness

For many Sámi, art is the sole domain in which they can be understood by people of other nations. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|