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Guests to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an artificial sun, glided down spiral slides, and observed automated jellyfish drifting through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nasal cavities of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this huge space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a maze-like design modeled after the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Inside, they can meander around or relax on pelts, listening on headphones to tribal seniors sharing stories and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It might sound whimsical, but the exhibit celebrates a rarely recognized natural marvel: experts have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it inhales by 80°C, allowing the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "creates a sense of smallness that you as a human being are not in control over nature." Sara is a ex- writer, young adult author, and land defender, who comes from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that generates the chance to alter your outlook or trigger some modesty," she continues.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The winding design is one of several elements in Sara's engaging art project honoring the culture, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count about 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They have endured oppression, integration policies, and suppression of their tongue by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the work also spotlights the group's issues associated with the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and external control.

Symbolism in Elements

On the extended entrance incline, there's a soaring, 26-meter structure of reindeer hides trapped by utility lines. It represents a symbol for the societal frameworks limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this part of the installation, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, in which dense layers of ice appear as varying conditions thaw and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary winter sustenance, moss. This phenomenon is a consequence of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than elsewhere.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and accompanied Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they hauled carts of animal nutrition on to the exposed Arctic plains to dispense manually. The reindeer gathered round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain attempts for vegetative morsels. This costly and laborious procedure is having a significant impact on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. However the choice is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are succumbing—a number from hunger, others drowning after sinking in water bodies through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the work is a monument to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

The sculpture also highlights the stark difference between the modern interpretation of power as a commodity to be exploited for gain and existence and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an innate essence in creatures, people, and land. Tate Modern's past as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be exemplars for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, river barriers, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their legal protections, livelihoods, and way of life are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to defend yourself when the arguments are grounded in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Mining practices has co-opted the rhetoric of environmentalism, but still it's just striving to find alternative ways to maintain practices of consumption."

Individual Challenges

The artist and her kin have personally disagreed with the Norwegian government over its tightening regulations on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's brother embarked on a set of finally failed lawsuits over the forced culling of his herd, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara developed a four-year series of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge screen of four hundred cranial remains, which was exhibited at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For numerous Indigenous people, art is the only realm in which they can be heard by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|