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Attendees to Tate Modern are accustomed to surprising encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an artificial sun, descended down spiral slides, and observed automated sea creatures hovering through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose chambers of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this immense space—developed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a maze-like design based on the expanded inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can stroll around or unwind on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors telling stories and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It might seem playful, but the artwork pays tribute to a rarely recognized natural marvel: researchers have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it takes in by eighty degrees, allowing the creature to survive in inhospitable Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "generates a sense of insignificance that you as a individual are not superior over nature." Sara is a former reporter, children's author, and rights advocate, who hails from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that creates the possibility to change your viewpoint or spark some humility," she continues.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The maze-like installation is part of a features in Sara's immersive commission celebrating the heritage, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total 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 oppression, cultural suppression, 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 founding narrative, the art also highlights the community's issues relating to the global warming, property rights, and imperialism.

Meaning in Materials

Along the long access incline, there's a looming, 26-metre sculpture of pelts trapped by electrical wires. It can be read as a symbol for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this section of the artwork, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, in which solid sheets of ice appear as varying temperatures melt and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season sustenance, lichen. Goavvi is a consequence of planetary warming, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than globally.

A few years back, I visited Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they carried carts of food pellets on to the barren tundra to dispense by hand. The herd crowded round us, pawing the slippery ground in vain for lichen-covered morsels. This expensive and laborious method is having a significant influence on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the choice is starvation. When such conditions become commonplace, reindeer are dying—some from hunger, others drowning after falling into streams through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the art is a tribute to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm transporting the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

The installation also emphasizes the clear difference between the modern interpretation of power as a resource to be utilized for economic benefit and survival and the Sámi worldview of life force as an innate essence in animals, humans, and the environment. This venue's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be standard bearers for renewable energy, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and traditions are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to stand your ground when the reasons are based on environmental protection," Sara observes. "Extractivism has adopted the language of ecology, but yet it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to continue practices of consumption."

Individual Challenges

Sara and her family have themselves conflicted with the state authorities over its ever-stricter rules on herding. A few years ago, Sara's sibling embarked on a sequence of unsuccessful lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara developed a four-year set of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a massive screen of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the the show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Art as Advocacy

For many Sámi, creative work is the exclusive sphere in which they can be heard by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|