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Guests to Tate Modern are used to unexpected experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an simulated sun, slid down spiral slides, and witnessed automated sea creatures drifting through the air. But this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nose passages of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this immense space—designed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a labyrinthine construction inspired by the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Inside, they can stroll around or unwind on reindeer hides, listening on earphones to Sámi elders telling tales and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It may sound whimsical, but the artwork honors a rarely recognized biological feat: researchers have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it inhales by 80°C, enabling the animal to thrive in harsh Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "generates a sense of insignificance that you as a human being are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who comes from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that creates the chance to shift your viewpoint or evoke some humility," she adds.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like installation is among various components in Sara's absorbing exhibition honoring the traditions, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They have endured oppression, integration policies, and eradication of their language by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the work also spotlights the community's challenges associated with the climate crisis, property rights, and imperialism.

Symbolism in Materials

On the extended entrance incline, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot formation of pelts entangled by electrical wires. It can be read as a metaphor for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this section of the installation, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, wherein thick sheets of ice form as changing weather liquefy and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' main winter nourishment, moss. This phenomenon is a consequence of planetary warming, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than in other regions.

Previously, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they transported containers of food pellets on to the wind-scoured tundra to distribute manually. The herd crowded round us, scratching the icy ground in vain for mossy bits. This expensive and laborious process is having a significant impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the other option is starvation. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are dying—a number from starvation, others submerging after plunging into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the art is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The installation also highlights the sharp divergence between the modern understanding of energy as a asset to be exploited for profit and survival and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an inherent essence in creatures, people, and nature. The gallery's history as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be exemplars for renewable energy, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, river barriers, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their legal protections, ways of life, and way of life are threatened. "It's hard being such a limited population to protect your rights when the reasons are based on global sustainability," Sara notes. "Mining practices has co-opted the discourse of ecology, but yet it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to persist in habits of consumption."

Personal Conflicts

She and her family have themselves conflicted with the state authorities over its tightening regulations on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's sibling embarked on a series of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his livestock, apparently to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara developed a extended set of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a massive drape of numerous cranial remains, which was displayed at the the show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it resides in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Activism

Among the community, creative work appears the sole realm in which they can be understood by outsiders. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|