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Attendees to the renowned gallery are accustomed to surprising displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an simulated sun, slid down spiral slides, and seen robotic jellyfish drifting through the air. However this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this cavernous space—designed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes visitors into a labyrinthine construction modeled after the expanded inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can wander around or unwind on skins, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors telling narratives and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It might appear whimsical, but the installation celebrates a rarely recognized natural marvel: researchers have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it takes in by 80°C, enabling the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "creates a perception of insignificance that you as a individual are not superior over nature." She is a former reporter, children's author, and rights advocate, who is from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that generates the potential to alter your perspective or evoke some humility," she states.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The labyrinthine design is part of a components in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the culture, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, cultural suppression, and eradication of their dialect by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the work also spotlights the group's issues associated with the global warming, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Meaning in Elements

At the extended entrance slope, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot formation of skins ensnared by utility lines. It represents a metaphor for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this part of the installation, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, wherein solid layers of ice form as fluctuating weather melt and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' main cold-season sustenance, moss. The condition is a result of planetary warming, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than in other regions.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they carried trailers of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to distribute through labor. These animals crowded round us, scratching the icy ground in futility for lichen-covered pieces. This resource-intensive and demanding method is having a drastic impact on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. Yet the alternative is death. When such conditions become commonplace, reindeer are dying—a number from lack of food, others submerging after sinking in water bodies through thinning ice sheets. On one level, the installation is a monument to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

The installation also underscores the stark divergence between the western view of electricity as a resource to be utilized for profit and survival and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an natural power in creatures, individuals, and nature. Tate Modern's past as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be exemplars for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and traditions are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to stand your ground when the arguments are based on environmental protection," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find alternative ways to persist in habits of consumption."

Individual Struggles

The artist and her family have personally disagreed with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent regulations on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's sibling undertook a series of finally failed court actions over the forced culling of his animals, apparently to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara developed a four-year collection of creations called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal screen of four hundred cranial remains, which was displayed at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it hangs in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For many Sámi, visual expression is the sole sphere in which they can be heard by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|