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Attendees to Tate Modern are used to surprising encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an man-made sun, glided down spiral slides, and observed AI-powered jellyfish floating through the air. However this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nose passages of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this immense space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a labyrinthine design based on the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Once inside, they can stroll around or chill out on skins, listening on headphones to Sámi elders imparting tales and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It may sound whimsical, but the exhibit pays tribute to a rarely recognized scientific wonder: scientists have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it takes in by eighty degrees, helping the animal to survive in harsh Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "produces a feeling of smallness that you as a person are not dominant over nature." Sara is a former reporter, young adult author, and environmental activist, who is from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that fosters the chance to change your perspective or trigger some humbleness," she continues.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The winding installation is one of several elements in Sara's absorbing art project showcasing the heritage, knowledge, and worldview of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They have endured persecution, integration policies, and eradication of their dialect by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the work also highlights the people's issues associated with the climate crisis, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Elements

Along the long access ramp, there's a soaring, 26-metre formation of pelts entangled by electrical wires. It can be read as a analogy for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this part of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, whereby thick coatings of ice form as changing conditions thaw and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary winter nourishment, moss. Goavvi is a consequence of climate change, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than globally.

A few years back, I visited Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they transported carts of food pellets on to the exposed frozen landscape to distribute through labor. The reindeer crowded round us, scratching the icy ground in futility for mossy bits. This expensive and demanding process is having a drastic impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. Yet the alternative is starvation. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after sinking in streams through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the installation is a tribute to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The sculpture also emphasizes the stark contrast between the western understanding of power as a commodity to be harnessed for profit and existence and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an innate power in animals, humans, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation by regional governments. In their efforts to be exemplars for sustainable power, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, river barriers, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their legal protections, incomes, and culture are threatened. "It's hard being such a limited population to protect your rights when the arguments are based on global sustainability," Sara observes. "Mining practices has adopted the rhetoric of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just striving to find alternative ways to continue habits of use."

Family Conflicts

The artist and her relatives have themselves conflicted with the state authorities over its ever-stricter rules on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's sibling undertook a sequence of unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his herd, apparently to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara produced a extended set of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal screen of 400 reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it hangs in the entrance.

Art as Awareness

For many Sámi, creative work is the only domain in which they can be understood by people of other nations. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|