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Visitors to the renowned gallery are familiar to unusual encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an man-made sun, slid down amusement rides, and observed automated sea creatures floating through the air. However this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nose passages of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this immense space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a labyrinthine structure based on the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Once inside, they can meander around or unwind on pelts, tuning in on earphones to tribal seniors telling tales and insights.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It might appear quirky, but the exhibit honors a obscure biological feat: scientists have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the incoming air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "produces a feeling of insignificance that you as a person are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- writer, young adult author, and rights advocate, who is from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that creates the possibility to shift your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The maze-like installation is part of a elements in Sara's absorbing commission honoring the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They've faced discrimination, forced assimilation, and suppression of their dialect by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the installation also draws attention to the community's challenges relating to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Meaning in Components

On the long access slope, there's a soaring, 26-metre sculpture of reindeer hides ensnared by electrical wires. It serves as a metaphor for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this section of the installation, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, in which solid sheets of ice form as varying conditions liquefy and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' key winter food, lichen. The condition is a consequence of planetary warming, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they carried carts of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to provide through labor. The herd gathered round us, digging the icy ground in futility for lichen-covered pieces. This resource-intensive and laborious procedure is having a significant influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the choice is death. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are succumbing—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after sinking in lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. On one level, the art is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

This artwork also emphasizes the clear divergence between the western view of power as a resource to be exploited for gain and existence and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an innate essence in animals, humans, and land. This venue's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by Nordic countries. As they strive to be leaders for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and way of life are threatened. "It's hard being such a limited population to protect your rights when the justifications are based on environmental protection," Sara comments. "Mining practices has adopted the language of sustainability, but still it's just striving to find better ways to maintain patterns of use."

Personal Challenges

The artist and her relatives have personally clashed with the national administration over its tightening rules on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's brother undertook a series of finally failed court actions over the required reduction of his herd, apparently to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara produced a multi-year set of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi including a huge screen of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it hangs in the lobby.

Creative Expression as Activism

For many Sámi, creative work appears the only sphere in which they can be understood by people of other nations. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|