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Guests to Tate Modern are used to unusual displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an artificial sun, slid down spiral slides, and witnessed automated sea creatures hovering through the air. Yet this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this immense space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a maze-like design inspired by the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose airways. Once inside, they can meander around or unwind on pelts, listening on earphones to community leaders sharing tales and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It might seem quirky, but the exhibit pays tribute to a little-known scientific wonder: experts have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it inhales by eighty degrees, helping the animal to endure in extreme Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "creates a feeling of inferiority that you as a individual are not in control over nature." The artist is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that creates the chance to shift your perspective or evoke some humility," she adds.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The winding installation is one of several elements in Sara's engaging exhibition showcasing the culture, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total about 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They've experienced discrimination, cultural suppression, and eradication of their language by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the installation also highlights the group's challenges connected to the climate crisis, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Meaning in Elements

At the long access slope, there's a looming, 26-meter structure of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It represents a analogy for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this component of the artwork, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, whereby dense coatings of ice develop as changing conditions thaw and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' main winter food, lichen. This phenomenon is a outcome of climate change, which is happening up to four times faster in the Far North than globally.

A few years back, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to dispense manually. These animals crowded round us, pawing the slippery ground in futility for lichen-covered pieces. This expensive and labour-intensive method is having a severe influence on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. But the other option is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are dying—some from lack of food, others submerging after sinking in streams through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the art is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The sculpture also highlights the clear divergence between the modern interpretation of energy as a commodity to be utilized for economic benefit and survival and the Sámi worldview of life force as an natural life force in animals, humans, and nature. The gallery's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation by Nordic countries. While attempting to be standard bearers for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, river barriers, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and culture are endangered. "It's hard being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the arguments are grounded in saving the world," Sara observes. "Extractivism has adopted the language of sustainability, but yet it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to persist in habits of use."

Personal Conflicts

She and her relatives have themselves conflicted with the state authorities over its ever-stricter policies on herding. In 2016, Sara's sibling embarked on a set of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his herd, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara produced a multi-year series of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge curtain of four hundred cranial remains, which was shown at the the event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the entryway.

Art as Advocacy

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