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Guests to Tate Modern are used to unusual displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have basked under an simulated sun, descended down spiral slides, and witnessed robotic jellyfish floating through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a labyrinthine construction modeled after the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose airways. Upon entering, they can stroll around or relax on pelts, listening on earphones to Sámi elders sharing stories and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It could seem quirky, but the exhibit celebrates a little-known scientific wonder: researchers have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the ambient air it inhales by 80°C, allowing the creature to endure in inhospitable Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "generates a feeling of smallness that you as a individual are not superior over nature." She is a former writer, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who comes from a herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that fosters the chance to change your outlook or spark some modesty," she continues.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like structure is part of a components in Sara's immersive commission honoring the culture, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total about 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They have faced persecution, cultural suppression, and eradication of their dialect by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the work also spotlights the group's struggles associated with the global warming, property rights, and imperialism.

Symbolism in Materials

Along the extended access slope, there's a soaring, 26-meter sculpture of skins ensnared by power and light cables. It represents a metaphor for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this section of the artwork, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein thick coatings of ice develop as fluctuating weather liquefy and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season sustenance, lichen. This phenomenon is a result of planetary warming, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than in other regions.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they transported trailers of food pellets on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to dispense through labor. The herd gathered round us, digging the frozen ground in vain attempts for vegetative morsels. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive process is having a significant effect on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. However the choice is malnutrition. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are dying—a number from lack of food, others submerging after sinking in water bodies through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the art is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

This artwork also underscores the sharp divergence between the western understanding of power as a resource to be harnessed for profit and survival and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an inherent essence in creatures, humans, and land. This venue's legacy as a industrial facility is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by regional governments. In their efforts to be standard bearers for renewable energy, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their legal protections, livelihoods, and culture are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to stand your ground when the reasons are based on environmental protection," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the discourse of environmentalism, but yet it's just aiming to find alternative ways to persist in habits of use."

Personal Conflicts

She and her relatives have themselves clashed with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter regulations on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's brother initiated a set of unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his livestock, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara developed a multi-year series of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge drape of numerous animal bones, which was displayed at the the show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it hangs in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

Among the community, creative work seems the sole realm in which they can be listened to by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|