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Guests to the renowned gallery are used to unusual experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've basked under an man-made sun, descended down helter skelters, and observed automated jellyfish drifting through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nasal chambers of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this huge space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a maze-like construction modeled after the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Once inside, they can wander around or unwind on reindeer hides, tuning in on earphones to community leaders sharing narratives and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It may sound quirky, but the artwork honors a rarely recognized scientific wonder: experts have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the ambient air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the animal to thrive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "produces a sense of insignificance that you as a person are not superior over nature." She is a ex- writer, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who comes from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that generates the potential to shift your perspective or evoke some humility," she states.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The winding installation is one of several elements in Sara's immersive exhibition celebrating the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They have faced persecution, cultural suppression, and suppression of their tongue by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the work also highlights the group's issues associated with the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and external control.

Meaning in Materials

At the extended entrance incline, there's a soaring, 26-meter sculpture of skins entangled by electrical wires. It represents a analogy for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this component of the exhibit, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby dense sheets of ice form as changing temperatures melt and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary cold-season nourishment, fungus. Goavvi is a outcome of planetary warming, which is happening up to four times faster in the Arctic than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the exposed frozen landscape to distribute by hand. The herd gathered round us, pawing the frozen ground in vain for lichen-covered morsels. This costly and demanding process is having a severe impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. However the other option is malnutrition. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—some from lack of food, others suffocating after sinking in water bodies through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the work is a tribute to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

This artwork also underscores the sharp contrast between the industrial view of power as a resource to be harnessed for gain and existence and the Sámi outlook of energy as an inherent power in creatures, people, and the environment. The gallery's history as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be leaders for renewable energy, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, water power facilities, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi contend their legal protections, incomes, and culture are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the arguments are rooted in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Mining practices has appropriated the discourse of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find better ways to persist in habits of use."

Personal Conflicts

Sara and her kin have personally conflicted with the state authorities over its ever-stricter rules on herding. Previously, Sara's brother undertook a series of unsuccessful lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara produced a extended set of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal screen of four hundred animal bones, which was shown at the the show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it hangs in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Awareness

Among the community, art is the only sphere in which they can be heard by outsiders. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|