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Guests to the renowned gallery are familiar to unexpected displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, descended down amusement rides, and witnessed robotic jellyfish floating through the air. However this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the detailed nose cavities of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this cavernous space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a winding structure inspired by the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Inside, they can meander around or chill out on skins, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors sharing tales and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It could sound quirky, but the artwork honors a rarely recognized scientific wonder: scientists have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the creature to survive in harsh Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "creates a feeling of smallness that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." She is a former writer, children's author, and rights advocate, who comes from a herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that fosters the potential to shift your viewpoint or evoke some modesty," she adds.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The winding design is among various elements in Sara's engaging commission celebrating the heritage, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They've experienced oppression, cultural suppression, and suppression of their language by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the installation also highlights the people's challenges relating to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Elements

At the lengthy entrance slope, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot structure of skins entangled by power and light cables. It represents a analogy for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this section of the artwork, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, in which solid layers of ice form as changing conditions liquefy and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' main winter nourishment, lichen. Goavvi is a result of climate change, which is happening up to four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions.

A few years back, I met with Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they hauled containers of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured tundra to distribute by hand. The reindeer surrounded round us, scratching the frozen ground in futility for lichen-covered pieces. This expensive and demanding process is having a significant impact on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. However the choice is death. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are dying—a number from hunger, others drowning after plunging into streams through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the installation is a monument to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The sculpture also highlights the sharp contrast between the western interpretation of energy as a commodity to be harnessed for gain and existence and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an natural power in creatures, individuals, and land. This venue's legacy as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be standard bearers for sustainable power, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, river barriers, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and way of life are threatened. "It's hard being such a small minority to protect your rights when the arguments are based on global sustainability," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the discourse of ecology, but yet it's just aiming to find better ways to continue habits of consumption."

Personal Struggles

Sara and her family have personally disagreed with the state authorities over its tightening regulations on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's brother initiated a set of finally failed lawsuits over the forced culling of his livestock, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara created a extended collection of creations named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal screen of 400 animal bones, which was shown at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it hangs in the lobby.

Art as Awareness

For numerous Indigenous people, visual expression is the exclusive realm in which they can be listened to by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|