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Attendees to the renowned gallery are familiar to unusual experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, slid down helter skelters, and seen automated sea creatures drifting through the air. Yet this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nose chambers of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this immense space—designed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a winding design based on the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Inside, they can meander around or unwind on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to Sámi elders imparting tales and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It might appear quirky, but the artwork pays tribute to a little-known biological feat: researchers have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it inhales by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to endure in extreme Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "produces a sense of inferiority that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." The artist is a former journalist, young adult author, and environmental activist, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that fosters the possibility to alter your outlook or trigger some modesty," she states.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine design is one of several features in Sara's absorbing art project celebrating the culture, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They've endured discrimination, forced assimilation, and repression of their dialect by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the installation also spotlights the group's struggles connected to the global warming, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Elements

At the extended entry incline, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot formation of skins ensnared by utility lines. It represents a analogy for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this section of the installation, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, in which dense coatings of ice develop as changing temperatures melt and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' key winter sustenance, moss. Goavvi is a outcome of climate change, which is happening up to four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions.

A few years back, I met with Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they hauled carts of food pellets on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to provide through labor. These animals crowded round us, scratching the slippery ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered pieces. This costly and demanding procedure is having a severe influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the other option is death. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are succumbing—some from hunger, others drowning after plunging into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the work is a monument to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

The installation also underscores the clear divergence between the industrial understanding of power as a asset to be utilized for profit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an innate essence in creatures, humans, and nature. This venue's history as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be standard bearers for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their human rights, livelihoods, and culture are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to defend yourself when the reasons are grounded in saving the world," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the language of sustainability, but yet it's just attempting to find alternative ways to continue practices of use."

Personal Struggles

Sara and her kin have themselves clashed with the Norwegian government over its tightening policies on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's brother initiated a series of unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his livestock, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a four-year collection of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge screen of 400 reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it hangs in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Awareness

For many Sámi, creative work seems the only domain in which they can be understood by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|