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Attendees to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unusual displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an artificial sun, descended down helter skelters, and seen AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nasal passages of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this huge space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a maze-like structure based on the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Once inside, they can wander around or chill out on reindeer hides, tuning in on earphones to tribal seniors telling tales and knowledge.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It may sound quirky, but the installation celebrates a little-known biological feat: researchers have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it inhales by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to survive in extreme Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "creates a perception of inferiority that you as a person are not in control over nature." The artist is a ex- writer, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who hails from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that fosters the possibility to alter your outlook or trigger some humility," she adds.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine installation is part of a elements in Sara's absorbing exhibition showcasing the heritage, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They've experienced oppression, forced assimilation, and eradication of their dialect by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the art also spotlights the community's challenges connected to the environmental emergency, loss of territory, and external control.

Symbolism in Materials

At the long access incline, there's a towering, 26-meter sculpture of skins entangled by utility lines. It serves as a symbol for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this component of the installation, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which dense sheets of ice develop as fluctuating conditions thaw and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' key winter sustenance, moss. The condition is a consequence of climate change, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Far North than globally.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a icy season and went with Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they carried carts of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured tundra to distribute by hand. The reindeer gathered round us, scratching the icy ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered morsels. This costly and labour-intensive procedure is having a significant impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the other option is starvation. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—some from hunger, others submerging after falling into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the installation is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm transporting the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

This artwork also highlights the stark divergence between the industrial interpretation of power as a resource to be utilized for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an innate power in creatures, individuals, and land. Tate Modern's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be exemplars for sustainable power, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, river barriers, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi contend their human rights, ways of life, and way of life are threatened. "It's challenging being such a small minority to defend yourself when the arguments are rooted in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Mining practices has co-opted the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to continue patterns of consumption."

Family Struggles

Sara and her relatives have themselves clashed with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent policies on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's brother undertook a set of finally failed lawsuits over the required reduction of his livestock, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara produced a extended series of artworks titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge screen of four hundred animal bones, which was exhibited at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the entryway.

Art as Awareness

Among the community, art is the only domain in which they can be heard by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|