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Guests to the renowned gallery are familiar to surprising displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an artificial sun, slid down spiral slides, and observed AI-powered jellyfish hovering through the air. However this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nasal passages of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this huge space—designed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a maze-like structure based on the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Inside, they can stroll around or chill out on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to Sámi elders imparting narratives and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why choose the nasal structure? It may sound whimsical, but the artwork honors a little-known scientific wonder: experts have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the ambient air it breathes in by 80°C, helping the animal to survive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "produces a feeling of smallness that you as a human being are not superior over nature." She is a ex- writer, young adult author, and environmental activist, who comes from a herding family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that generates the chance to shift your viewpoint or trigger some humility," she states.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The winding design is part of a elements in Sara's engaging exhibition celebrating the heritage, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They have faced discrimination, cultural suppression, and eradication of their language by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the installation also draws attention to the community's challenges associated with the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and external control.

Metaphor in Materials

Along the lengthy entrance slope, there's a towering, 26-metre sculpture of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It can be read as a analogy for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this component of the exhibit, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, whereby thick coatings of ice form as varying conditions thaw and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' main cold-season sustenance, lichen. The condition is a result of climate change, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Far North than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and went with Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they carried trailers of food pellets on to the barren tundra to provide by hand. The herd gathered round us, scratching the slippery ground in futility for mossy pieces. This costly and labour-intensive procedure is having a severe effect on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. Yet the alternative is death. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after plunging into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the work is a memorial to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

This artwork also emphasizes the sharp difference between the western interpretation of power as a resource to be harnessed for profit and survival and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an innate essence in animals, individuals, and the environment. This venue's past as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. As they strive to be standard bearers for sustainable power, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and culture are endangered. "It's hard being such a small minority to stand your ground when the reasons are based on saving the world," Sara comments. "Extractivism has appropriated the rhetoric of ecology, but yet it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to continue practices of use."

Family Challenges

Sara and her kin have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent rules on herding. In 2016, Sara's brother undertook a series of finally failed legal cases over the forced culling of his animals, apparently to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a extended collection of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge drape of numerous reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it hangs in the lobby.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work appears the sole realm in which they can be listened to by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|