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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to surprising encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, descended down spiral slides, and observed robotic sea creatures hovering through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nose chambers of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this huge space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a labyrinthine construction based on the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can wander around or unwind on pelts, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders imparting narratives and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It could sound whimsical, but the installation pays tribute to a little-known biological feat: experts have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it takes in by 80°C, allowing the creature to endure in harsh Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "creates a sense of smallness that you as a human being are not in control over nature." She is a ex- writer, writer for kids, and land defender, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that fosters the potential to shift your perspective or spark some modesty," she continues.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The maze-like design is among various features in Sara's immersive exhibition showcasing the culture, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They have experienced discrimination, cultural suppression, and eradication of their dialect by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the installation also draws attention to the group's issues associated with the environmental emergency, loss of territory, and external control.

Metaphor in Components

Along the lengthy entrance ramp, there's a looming, 26-meter structure of pelts ensnared by utility lines. It can be read as a symbol for the societal frameworks restricting 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, in which dense layers of ice appear as fluctuating conditions melt and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' main cold-season nourishment, lichen. The condition is a consequence of planetary warming, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than elsewhere.

A few years back, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they carried containers of food pellets on to the barren frozen landscape to distribute by hand. The herd gathered round us, scratching the frozen ground in futility for vegetative morsels. This costly and demanding procedure is having a significant effect on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. However the other option is starvation. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are dying—some from hunger, others drowning after plunging into streams through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the art is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

This artwork also emphasizes the stark contrast between the industrial understanding of power as a resource to be utilized for gain and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an inherent essence in animals, individuals, and the environment. Tate Modern's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be leaders for renewable energy, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their legal protections, ways of life, and traditions are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the arguments are grounded in global sustainability," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the language of sustainability, but still it's just attempting to find alternative ways to maintain practices of expenditure."

Family Challenges

She and her family have themselves conflicted with the state authorities over its tightening rules on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's sibling embarked on a series of unsuccessful legal cases over the required reduction of his herd, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. To back him, Sara developed a multi-year series of creations named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive curtain of four hundred cranial remains, which was displayed at the 2017 event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it hangs in the entrance.

Art as Advocacy

Among the community, visual expression is the only domain in which they can be heard by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|