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Guests to the renowned gallery are familiar to unusual encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an simulated sun, descended down amusement rides, and seen AI-powered jellyfish drifting through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this immense space—designed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a labyrinthine structure modeled after the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Inside, they can stroll around or relax on pelts, tuning in on headphones to Sámi elders telling stories and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It could seem quirky, but the exhibit celebrates a rarely recognized natural marvel: researchers have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it breathes in by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to endure in extreme Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "creates a feeling of inferiority that you as a individual are not in control over nature." Sara is a former reporter, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who comes from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that fosters the potential to shift your outlook or trigger some humbleness," she states.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The labyrinthine structure is part of a features in Sara's immersive art project celebrating the traditions, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They've experienced discrimination, integration policies, and repression of their tongue by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the installation also highlights the group's struggles relating to the environmental emergency, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Elements

Along the lengthy entrance incline, there's a looming, 26-meter formation of reindeer hides entangled by power and light cables. It can be read as a symbol for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this part of the installation, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, in which dense layers of ice form as varying weather melt and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' main winter nourishment, lichen. This phenomenon is a result of climate change, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than globally.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they carried containers of supplementary feed on to the exposed tundra to distribute manually. The herd gathered round us, digging the frozen ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered pieces. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive process is having a drastic impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. However the choice is starvation. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are dying—some from hunger, others suffocating after plunging into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the art is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

The installation also underscores the sharp divergence between the western understanding of electricity as a commodity to be utilized for profit and survival and the Sámi worldview of life force as an natural life force in creatures, people, and nature. Tate Modern's legacy as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. As they strive to be standard bearers for clean sources, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their legal protections, livelihoods, and traditions are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to defend yourself when the justifications are rooted in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the language of sustainability, but yet it's just attempting to find better ways to maintain practices of consumption."

Family Conflicts

She and her family have personally disagreed with the state authorities over its tightening regulations on herding. A few years ago, Sara's brother initiated a series of unsuccessful lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara developed a four-year series of artworks titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive screen of four hundred animal bones, which was shown at the the event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Activism

For many Sámi, visual expression seems the only realm in which they can be understood by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|