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Visitors to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unusual displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an simulated sun, glided down helter skelters, and seen robotic jellyfish drifting through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nasal chambers of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this immense space—designed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a labyrinthine construction modeled after the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal airways. Inside, they can meander around or unwind on skins, listening on headphones to tribal seniors sharing narratives and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It might seem whimsical, but the installation pays tribute to a obscure biological feat: researchers have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it takes in by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to endure in harsh Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "produces a feeling of insignificance that you as a human being are not superior over nature." Sara is a former reporter, children's author, and environmental activist, who is from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that generates the possibility to alter your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she states.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine structure is among various elements in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the traditions, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, 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 endured persecution, forced assimilation, and eradication of their dialect by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the art also draws attention to the community's issues associated with the climate crisis, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Symbolism in Materials

At the long entry slope, there's a soaring, 26-meter structure of skins ensnared by electrical wires. It can be read as a metaphor for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this part of the installation, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, whereby dense layers of ice form as changing conditions liquefy and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season nourishment, fungus. Goavvi is a result of planetary warming, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate 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 chilly conditions as they hauled trailers of animal nutrition on to the barren Arctic plains to dispense by hand. The reindeer crowded round us, pawing the icy ground in vain attempts for mossy morsels. This resource-intensive and laborious process is having a severe effect on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. Yet the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are dying—a number from hunger, others suffocating after plunging into streams through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the installation is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Worldviews

This artwork also emphasizes the stark divergence between the western interpretation of power as a commodity to be harnessed for gain and survival and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an innate power in animals, humans, and land. Tate Modern's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by regional governments. As they strive to be exemplars for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and traditions are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to protect your rights when the reasons are based on saving the world," Sara comments. "Extractivism has appropriated the language of sustainability, but yet it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to maintain patterns of use."

Individual Struggles

She and her kin have personally conflicted with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter rules on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's brother undertook a series of finally failed court actions over the forced culling of his livestock, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara created a extended series of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive drape of 400 cranial remains, which was shown at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

For many Sámi, creative work seems the exclusive domain in which they can be heard by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|