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Guests to the renowned gallery are used to unusual experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've basked under an man-made sun, glided down amusement rides, and witnessed automated jellyfish drifting through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a labyrinthine structure modeled after the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Upon entering, they can wander around or chill out on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to community leaders telling tales and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It might appear playful, but the artwork celebrates a rarely recognized biological feat: researchers have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it inhales by 80°C, allowing the animal to endure in extreme Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "produces a sense of inferiority that you as a person are not dominant over nature." Sara is a ex- reporter, young adult author, and rights advocate, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that generates the possibility to alter your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The winding structure is among various components in Sara's immersive art project celebrating the culture, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number about 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They have endured discrimination, cultural suppression, and suppression of their language by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the installation also draws attention to the community's struggles relating to the global warming, property rights, and external control.

Meaning in Components

At the long access ramp, there's a soaring, eighty-five-foot sculpture of reindeer hides trapped by utility lines. It can be read as a symbol for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this section of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein solid layers of ice appear as fluctuating weather liquefy and refreeze the snow, locking in the reindeers' key winter food, moss. The condition is a consequence of climate change, which is taking place up to four times faster in the Arctic than elsewhere.

Previously, I met with Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they hauled trailers of food pellets on to the exposed frozen landscape to provide by hand. The herd gathered round us, pawing the icy ground in futility for mossy morsels. This resource-intensive and laborious process is having a significant impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the other option is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—some from hunger, others suffocating after plunging into streams through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the work is a monument to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The installation also highlights the stark difference between the western interpretation of energy as a resource to be utilized for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an innate essence in animals, humans, and the environment. The gallery's history as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be leaders for clean sources, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and culture are at risk. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the justifications are based on saving the world," Sara observes. "Mining practices has appropriated the rhetoric of environmentalism, but yet it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to persist in practices of use."

Personal Struggles

The artist and her kin have personally conflicted with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent policies on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's sibling undertook a set of unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his herd, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a multi-year set of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge screen of numerous cranial remains, which was shown at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For many Sámi, art is the sole domain in which they can be understood by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|