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Guests to Tate Modern are used to surprising encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have basked under an man-made sun, slid down amusement rides, and witnessed automated sea creatures floating through the air. But this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the complex nasal chambers of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this huge space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a labyrinthine structure inspired by the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nose airways. Inside, they can wander around or unwind on skins, listening on headphones to community leaders imparting stories and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It may seem playful, but the artwork celebrates a little-known scientific wonder: researchers have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it inhales by 80°C, allowing the creature to survive in harsh Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "creates a sense of smallness that you as a individual are not superior over nature." Sara is a former writer, young adult author, and rights advocate, who comes from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that fosters the potential to change your viewpoint or evoke some humility," she states.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine installation is part of a features in Sara's engaging exhibition honoring the traditions, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi count about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They have experienced discrimination, integration policies, and repression of their dialect by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the art also highlights the people's struggles associated with the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Components

On the extended entry incline, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot sculpture of reindeer hides trapped by utility lines. It represents a analogy for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this component of the installation, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, whereby thick layers of ice form as fluctuating temperatures thaw and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' key winter food, moss. The condition is a outcome of planetary warming, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Far North than in other regions.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they hauled carts of supplementary feed on to the barren Arctic plains to provide by hand. The herd surrounded round us, digging the slippery ground in futility for vegetative bits. This costly and laborious procedure is having a drastic influence on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. Yet the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are dying—some from lack of food, others submerging after plunging into lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. On one level, the installation is a memorial to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The installation also underscores the stark divergence between the industrial understanding of electricity as a asset to be harnessed for gain and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of life force as an inherent essence in animals, individuals, and land. The gallery's past as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be leaders for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, river barriers, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi assert their human rights, livelihoods, and way of life are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to stand your ground when the reasons are grounded in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Mining practices has co-opted the rhetoric of sustainability, but still it's just striving to find better ways to maintain practices of consumption."

Personal Conflicts

The artist and her kin have personally disagreed with the national administration over its increasingly stringent rules on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's brother initiated a series of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara produced a multi-year set of creations called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal curtain of 400 cranial remains, which was displayed at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Creative Expression as Activism

For numerous Indigenous people, visual expression seems the exclusive realm in which they can be heard by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|