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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an simulated sun, glided down helter skelters, and witnessed automated sea creatures hovering through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this cavernous space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a winding structure modeled after the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Inside, they can stroll around or unwind on reindeer hides, listening on earphones to community leaders sharing stories and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It may appear whimsical, but the installation celebrates a obscure biological feat: scientists have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it takes in by 80°C, helping the creature to survive in harsh Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "produces a sense of inferiority that you as a individual are not in control over nature." The artist is a former writer, young adult author, and environmental activist, who comes from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that fosters the possibility to alter your outlook or trigger some modesty," she states.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like structure is one of several components in Sara's engaging exhibition honoring the traditions, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have endured oppression, forced assimilation, and eradication of their dialect by all four states. 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 relating to the climate crisis, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Materials

At the lengthy entrance ramp, there's a looming, 26-metre structure of skins ensnared by utility lines. It can be read as a metaphor for the societal frameworks limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this section of the installation, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein thick coatings of ice develop as varying weather thaw and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' main cold-season food, lichen. This phenomenon is a result of global heating, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions.

A few years back, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and joined Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they transported carts of supplementary feed on to the barren Arctic plains to provide by hand. These animals surrounded round us, scratching the icy ground in futility for lichen-covered bits. This costly and demanding method is having a significant influence on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the alternative is death. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from starvation, others submerging after falling into water bodies through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the work is a monument to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The sculpture also underscores the clear difference between the modern view of energy as a asset to be harnessed for economic benefit and survival and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an inherent power in creatures, people, and land. The gallery's history as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be standard bearers for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, river barriers, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi assert their legal protections, ways of life, and culture are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the justifications are based on saving the world," Sara comments. "Mining practices has co-opted the rhetoric of ecology, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to continue practices of consumption."

Family Struggles

Sara and her family have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent regulations on herding. In 2016, Sara's brother undertook a series of unsuccessful legal cases over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara created a four-year set of creations called Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal screen of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Activism

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