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Guests to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unexpected displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've basked under an simulated sun, slid down amusement rides, and seen automated sea creatures drifting through the air. However this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nose cavities of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this huge space—designed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a winding structure based on the expanded inside of a reindeer's nose airways. Upon entering, they can meander around or unwind on skins, listening on headphones to tribal seniors sharing narratives and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It may seem whimsical, but the artwork celebrates a obscure scientific wonder: researchers have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it inhales by 80°C, enabling the animal to survive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "produces a feeling of inferiority that you as a person are not in control over nature." Sara is a ex- journalist, young adult author, and rights advocate, who comes from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that generates the chance to change your perspective or evoke some humility," she adds.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine structure is one of several components in Sara's absorbing commission showcasing the heritage, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They've experienced discrimination, cultural suppression, and suppression of their tongue by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the art also spotlights the people's issues relating to the global warming, property rights, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Elements

On the long entry incline, there's a towering, 26-metre formation of pelts ensnared by utility lines. It represents a metaphor for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this part of the artwork, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, in which thick coatings of ice form as varying weather melt and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' main winter food, moss. This phenomenon is a outcome of global heating, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than in other regions.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they transported containers of food pellets on to the barren frozen landscape to distribute manually. These animals surrounded round us, pawing the slippery ground in vain for mossy pieces. This expensive and laborious process is having a severe effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. However the alternative is death. When such conditions become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—a number from starvation, others submerging after plunging into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the installation is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Worldviews

The installation also highlights the clear difference between the industrial interpretation of electricity as a commodity to be harnessed for economic benefit and survival and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an innate life force in animals, humans, and land. The gallery's past as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by regional governments. While attempting to be exemplars for clean sources, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and culture are endangered. "It's hard being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the arguments are based on global sustainability," Sara notes. "Extractivism has co-opted the discourse of environmentalism, but still it's just aiming to find better ways to persist in patterns of consumption."

Personal Conflicts

Sara and her family have personally clashed with the state authorities over its tightening regulations on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's sibling embarked on a set of unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his herd, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. To back him, Sara developed a multi-year set of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive curtain of four hundred cranial remains, which was displayed at the the show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Awareness

For many Sámi, visual expression is the only sphere in which they can be listened to by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|