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Visitors to the renowned gallery are familiar to surprising displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, glided down helter skelters, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures hovering through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this huge space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a maze-like construction modeled after the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can meander around or relax on reindeer hides, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders sharing stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It might sound playful, but the exhibit celebrates a rarely recognized natural marvel: experts have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it breathes in by 80°C, allowing the animal to endure in inhospitable Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "produces a sense of smallness that you as a human being are not in control over nature." Sara is a ex- journalist, writer for kids, and land defender, who is from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that fosters the chance to shift your viewpoint or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine design is part of a features in Sara's engaging commission honoring the traditions, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They have experienced oppression, forced assimilation, and repression of their language by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the installation also highlights the people's challenges relating to the environmental emergency, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Elements

On the long entry ramp, there's a looming, 26-metre sculpture of pelts trapped by utility lines. It can be read as a symbol for the societal frameworks limiting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this section of the exhibit, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which thick sheets of ice form as fluctuating conditions liquefy and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' main cold-season nourishment, fungus. This phenomenon is a consequence of planetary warming, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Far North than elsewhere.

A few years back, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and went with Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they transported carts of animal nutrition on to the exposed frozen landscape to dispense by hand. These animals crowded round us, digging the slippery ground in futility for vegetative bits. This resource-intensive and demanding procedure is having a drastic influence on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the alternative is death. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—a number from lack of food, others drowning after falling into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the installation is a memorial to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

The installation also highlights the stark divergence between the western understanding of energy as a asset to be exploited for gain and survival and the Sámi outlook of energy as an inherent power in animals, humans, and land. The gallery's legacy as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by regional governments. As they strive to be exemplars for sustainable power, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and traditions are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to protect your rights when the justifications are based on global sustainability," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has adopted the discourse of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find alternative ways to maintain practices of consumption."

Personal Struggles

Sara and her relatives have personally disagreed with the state authorities over its tightening policies on herding. A few years ago, Sara's brother initiated a series of unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his livestock, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. To back him, Sara developed a multi-year collection of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal curtain of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was shown at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it hangs in the lobby.

Art as Awareness

For numerous Indigenous people, art seems the only realm in which they can be understood by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|