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Attendees to Tate Modern are familiar to surprising experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an simulated sun, slid down amusement rides, and observed robotic sea creatures floating through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nose cavities of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this immense space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a maze-like design inspired by the expanded interior of a reindeer's nasal airways. Inside, they can stroll around or unwind on skins, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors telling stories and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why choose the nasal structure? It might appear whimsical, but the artwork pays tribute to a obscure biological feat: scientists have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the ambient air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, helping the animal to thrive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "produces a sense of insignificance that you as a individual are not in control over nature." Sara is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who is from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that fosters the potential to shift your perspective or spark some modesty," she continues.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The winding design is among various elements in Sara's absorbing commission honoring the heritage, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number about 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They have endured oppression, integration policies, and repression of their tongue by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the art also highlights the community's struggles connected to the global warming, property rights, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Components

Along the long access incline, there's a towering, 26-meter formation of reindeer hides entangled by electrical wires. It can be read as a metaphor for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this section of the installation, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein dense coatings of ice develop as fluctuating weather melt and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' key winter nourishment, fungus. This phenomenon is a consequence of planetary warming, which is happening up to four times faster in the Arctic than globally.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they transported carts of supplementary feed on to the exposed Arctic plains to dispense through labor. The reindeer surrounded round us, pawing the icy ground in vain for vegetative bits. This expensive and demanding process is having a significant impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. But the choice is death. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are dying—a number from hunger, others suffocating after sinking in streams through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the installation is a tribute to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

The sculpture also emphasizes the sharp difference between the industrial understanding of electricity as a commodity to be harnessed for profit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of energy as an innate life force in animals, individuals, and land. This venue's history as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Nordic countries. As they strive to be standard bearers for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, river barriers, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their human rights, livelihoods, and way of life are endangered. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the reasons are based on global sustainability," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the discourse of sustainability, but yet it's just attempting to find better ways to persist in habits of use."

Personal Conflicts

The artist and her family have personally clashed with the state authorities over its ever-stricter rules on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's brother undertook a sequence of unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his livestock, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a four-year set of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi including a massive drape of 400 reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017 event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the lobby.

Creative Expression as Activism

For numerous Indigenous people, art appears the exclusive domain in which they can be understood by people of other nations. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|