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Guests to Tate Modern are accustomed to surprising displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've basked under an man-made sun, descended down spiral slides, and witnessed automated jellyfish hovering through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nasal passages of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a winding design modeled after the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Once inside, they can meander around or unwind on skins, listening on earphones to tribal seniors imparting tales and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It could appear playful, but the artwork pays tribute to a little-known scientific wonder: researchers have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it takes in by 80°C, allowing the animal to thrive in harsh Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "creates a perception of inferiority that you as a person are not dominant over nature." She is a former writer, young adult author, and land defender, who hails from a herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that fosters the potential to alter your perspective or trigger some humbleness," she states.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine structure is part of a features in Sara's engaging commission showcasing the heritage, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They've experienced persecution, forced assimilation, and eradication of their language by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the work also draws attention to the group's struggles relating to the global warming, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Elements

Along the extended entrance incline, there's a looming, 26-metre sculpture of pelts entangled by utility lines. It represents a analogy for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this section of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which solid sheets of ice form as varying conditions thaw and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' key cold-season sustenance, lichen. Goavvi is a result of climate change, which is taking place up to four times faster in the Far North than elsewhere.

A few years back, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and joined Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they transported trailers of supplementary feed on to the exposed Arctic plains to distribute manually. The herd crowded round us, pawing the slippery ground in futility for mossy bits. This expensive and demanding process is having a significant effect on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. But the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are perishing—some from hunger, others suffocating after falling into streams through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the work is a tribute to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The installation also emphasizes the clear contrast between the western understanding of power as a resource to be utilized for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an innate life force in creatures, individuals, and nature. This venue's history as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by regional governments. While attempting to be standard bearers for sustainable power, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their human rights, incomes, and traditions are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the arguments are rooted in environmental protection," Sara notes. "Extractivism has appropriated the language of environmentalism, but still it's just striving to find more suitable ways to continue patterns of expenditure."

Family Challenges

The artist and her kin have themselves conflicted with the national administration over its ever-stricter policies on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's brother initiated a series of unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his livestock, apparently to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara produced a four-year collection of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a massive drape of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it hangs in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For many Sámi, art appears the only sphere in which they can be understood by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|