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Attendees to Tate Modern are accustomed to unexpected encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an simulated sun, descended down spiral slides, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures floating through the air. However this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nasal passages of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes visitors into a maze-like structure based on the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Once inside, they can wander around or relax on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to tribal seniors telling stories and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It could sound whimsical, but the exhibit celebrates a little-known biological feat: researchers have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it takes in by 80°C, enabling the creature to thrive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "generates a perception of insignificance that you as a human being are not superior over nature." The artist is a ex- writer, young adult author, and land defender, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that generates the possibility to shift your viewpoint or trigger some modesty," she continues.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The winding installation is part of a elements in Sara's engaging commission showcasing the culture, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi number about 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They have faced discrimination, forced assimilation, and suppression of their dialect by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the installation also draws attention to the community's challenges relating to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Meaning in Elements

On the extended entry ramp, there's a towering, 26-meter sculpture of skins ensnared by electrical wires. It can be read as a symbol for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this component of the installation, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, wherein dense sheets of ice appear as fluctuating conditions thaw and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' key winter food, fungus. Goavvi is a consequence of planetary warming, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than in other regions.

A few years back, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and went with Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they transported containers of food pellets on to the exposed Arctic plains to dispense by hand. The reindeer surrounded round us, scratching the icy ground in vain attempts for mossy bits. This resource-intensive and laborious process is having a severe impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. Yet the alternative is starvation. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are dying—some from hunger, others drowning after falling into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the art is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

The sculpture also underscores the clear difference between the industrial view of electricity as a commodity to be exploited for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of life force as an inherent power in animals, humans, and nature. This venue's past as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be exemplars for renewable energy, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, water power facilities, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi contend their human rights, ways of life, and traditions are threatened. "It's hard being such a small minority to stand your ground when the arguments are based on global sustainability," Sara comments. "Mining practices has co-opted the language of sustainability, but yet it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to persist in habits of expenditure."

Individual Struggles

Sara and her kin have themselves clashed with the state authorities over its tightening rules on herding. Previously, Sara's brother embarked on a set of finally failed court actions over the required reduction of his animals, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara produced a multi-year collection of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal curtain of 400 cranial remains, which was displayed at the the show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Art as Advocacy

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