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Attendees to Tate Modern are used to surprising displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an artificial sun, slid down helter skelters, and seen robotic jellyfish hovering through the air. However this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nasal passages of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this cavernous space—designed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a winding structure modeled after the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal airways. Inside, they can meander around or relax on reindeer hides, tuning in on earphones to community leaders imparting tales and insights.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It may sound playful, but the exhibit celebrates a little-known natural marvel: scientists have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the animal to thrive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "produces a feeling of inferiority that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." She is a ex- writer, young adult author, and rights advocate, who hails from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that fosters the possibility to change your outlook or spark some modesty," she states.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The maze-like installation is part of a components in Sara's immersive commission showcasing the heritage, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They've experienced oppression, integration policies, and eradication of their tongue by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the installation also spotlights the group's struggles relating to the global warming, land dispossession, and external control.

Meaning in Components

On the long entrance incline, there's a soaring, 26-metre formation of pelts ensnared by power and light cables. It can be read as a metaphor for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this part of the installation, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, wherein dense sheets of ice develop as fluctuating weather liquefy and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season nourishment, lichen. The condition is a consequence of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than elsewhere.

Previously, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they hauled carts of food pellets on to the barren Arctic plains to provide by hand. The reindeer gathered round us, digging the icy ground in vain attempts for vegetative bits. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive process is having a drastic impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. However the alternative is malnutrition. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from lack of food, others drowning after plunging into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the work is a monument to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

This artwork also highlights the stark difference between the modern understanding of power as a resource to be utilized for gain and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an innate power in creatures, individuals, and land. The gallery's history as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by regional governments. In their efforts to be exemplars for sustainable power, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, river barriers, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their legal protections, incomes, and culture are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the arguments are based on saving the world," Sara notes. "Extractivism has adopted the rhetoric of ecology, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find alternative ways to maintain habits of consumption."

Family Struggles

The artist and her relatives have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its tightening rules on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's sibling initiated a set of finally failed legal cases over the forced culling of his animals, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara produced a extended set of creations named Pile O'Sápmi including a huge screen of numerous reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017 event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it is displayed in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

For many Sámi, art is the only realm in which they can be understood by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|