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Visitors to Tate Modern are familiar to unexpected displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an man-made sun, glided down spiral slides, and witnessed automated sea creatures hovering through the air. However this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nose cavities of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this immense space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a winding design based on the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose airways. Upon entering, they can wander around or chill out on pelts, tuning in on earphones to community leaders sharing narratives and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It could appear whimsical, but the artwork honors a obscure natural marvel: experts have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it takes in by 80°C, allowing the creature to thrive in harsh Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "creates a feeling of smallness that you as a human being are not in control over nature." The artist is a former journalist, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who hails from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that generates the possibility to change your perspective or trigger some humbleness," she adds.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The labyrinthine installation is among various features in Sara's absorbing exhibition showcasing the heritage, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, forced assimilation, and eradication of their dialect by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and founding narrative, the art also draws attention to the people's issues relating to the climate crisis, property rights, and external control.

Metaphor in Components

On the lengthy entrance slope, there's a looming, 26-metre sculpture of skins ensnared by utility lines. It serves as a metaphor for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this component of the artwork, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, in which dense coatings of ice appear as changing temperatures liquefy and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' main winter sustenance, fungus. Goavvi is a result of planetary warming, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than in other regions.

Previously, I visited Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and went with Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they carried trailers of food pellets on to the barren Arctic plains to dispense through labor. The herd crowded round us, pawing the icy ground in vain for lichen-covered pieces. This costly and laborious process is having a severe influence on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. Yet the choice is death. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are succumbing—a number from hunger, others submerging after sinking in water bodies through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the work is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The sculpture also underscores the sharp contrast between the modern interpretation of energy as a resource to be utilized for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi worldview of life force as an inherent life force in animals, individuals, and the environment. This venue's history as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation 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 native soil; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and way of life are endangered. "It's challenging being such a limited population to stand your ground when the reasons are rooted in global sustainability," Sara comments. "Mining practices has adopted the language of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to persist in practices of use."

Family Struggles

Sara and her family have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent rules on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's brother undertook a sequence of finally failed lawsuits over the required reduction of his animals, apparently to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a four-year collection of artworks titled Pile O'Sápmi including a massive curtain of four hundred animal bones, which was shown at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For many Sámi, creative work is the exclusive realm in which they can be understood by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|