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Attendees to Tate Modern are familiar to unexpected displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an artificial sun, slid down amusement rides, and seen AI-powered sea creatures hovering through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nose chambers of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this huge space—developed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a labyrinthine structure based on the expanded inside of a reindeer's nose airways. Inside, they can wander around or chill out on pelts, listening on earphones to Sámi elders imparting tales and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It might appear playful, but the installation pays tribute to a obscure scientific wonder: researchers have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it takes in by eighty degrees, enabling the animal to survive in extreme Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "generates a sense of insignificance that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." The artist is a former journalist, writer for kids, and land defender, who is from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that generates the potential to alter your viewpoint or spark some humility," she states.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The labyrinthine installation is one of several features in Sara's engaging art project honoring the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi count about 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They've endured persecution, integration policies, and repression of their dialect by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the art also draws attention to the community's issues connected to the global warming, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Meaning in Materials

Along the extended entrance incline, there's a looming, 26-meter formation of skins ensnared by power and light cables. It can be read as a symbol for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this part of the installation, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, whereby solid sheets of ice form as fluctuating conditions thaw and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season sustenance, moss. The condition is a outcome of climate change, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Far North than globally.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they hauled containers of supplementary feed on to the barren tundra to dispense through labor. The herd gathered round us, digging the frozen ground in vain for lichen-covered pieces. This expensive and labour-intensive process is having a drastic effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the alternative is starvation. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are dying—a number from starvation, others suffocating after sinking in water bodies through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the installation is a tribute to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

This artwork also highlights the clear difference between the western view of electricity as a asset to be utilized for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an innate power in animals, individuals, and land. Tate Modern's history as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by regional governments. While attempting to be standard bearers for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi contend their human rights, livelihoods, and traditions are at risk. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the arguments are grounded in saving the world," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the discourse of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find alternative ways to maintain habits of use."

Personal Struggles

She and her family have personally conflicted with the state authorities over its tightening policies on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's sibling initiated a set of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a four-year series of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge screen of numerous cranial remains, which was exhibited at the the show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it resides in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

Among the community, art seems the sole domain in which they can be listened to by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|