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Visitors to Tate Modern are used to unexpected experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an artificial sun, descended down helter skelters, and witnessed robotic sea creatures floating through the air. However this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nasal passages of a reindeer. The newest artistic project for this huge space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a labyrinthine structure based on the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Once inside, they can wander around or relax on pelts, tuning in on headphones to community leaders telling tales and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It might appear playful, but the exhibit celebrates a obscure scientific wonder: scientists have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it inhales by 80°C, helping the creature to survive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "produces a perception of insignificance that you as a human being are not in control over nature." She is a former journalist, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who hails from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that fosters the chance to alter your perspective or spark some humbleness," she adds.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine design is one of several elements in Sara's engaging commission honoring the traditions, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count about 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They have faced persecution, cultural suppression, and repression of their dialect by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the art also draws attention to the community's struggles associated with the climate crisis, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Materials

Along the extended access incline, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot formation of reindeer hides entangled by electrical wires. It represents a analogy for the societal frameworks limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this part of the artwork, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein thick coatings of ice appear as changing temperatures liquefy and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' key winter nourishment, lichen. Goavvi is a result of planetary warming, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than in other regions.

A few years back, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they hauled containers of animal nutrition on to the exposed tundra to dispense by hand. The reindeer crowded round us, pawing the frozen ground in futility for mossy pieces. This costly and laborious procedure is having a severe impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. However the choice is malnutrition. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are dying—a number from starvation, others suffocating after sinking in lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the work is a monument to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

The installation also emphasizes the sharp difference between the industrial understanding of energy as a resource to be utilized for profit and existence and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an natural power in creatures, humans, and nature. The gallery's history as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be leaders for sustainable power, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their human rights, livelihoods, and way of life are at risk. "It's hard being such a small minority to stand your ground when the arguments are rooted in saving the world," Sara notes. "Mining practices has co-opted the discourse of ecology, but yet it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to continue patterns of consumption."

Personal Struggles

Sara and her family have personally conflicted with the Norwegian government over its tightening policies on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's sibling embarked on a series of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the forced culling of his herd, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara developed a extended set of creations called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge screen of 400 reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the the show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it resides in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work is the only realm in which they can be listened to by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|