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Guests to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, glided down spiral slides, and observed AI-powered sea creatures hovering through the air. However this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nasal passages of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this immense space—developed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a labyrinthine design based on the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Upon entering, they can wander around or relax on reindeer hides, tuning in on earphones to community leaders sharing stories and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It might appear quirky, but the artwork celebrates a little-known natural marvel: scientists have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it breathes in by 80°C, allowing the animal to survive in extreme Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "creates a feeling of insignificance that you as a person are not superior over nature." She is a former writer, children's author, and environmental activist, who is from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that fosters the possibility to change your viewpoint or evoke some humility," she continues.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The winding design is part of a components in Sara's engaging commission honoring the traditions, knowledge, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They have experienced discrimination, forced assimilation, and suppression of their dialect by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the installation also spotlights the group's issues relating to the climate crisis, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Meaning in Elements

At the long entry ramp, there's a soaring, 26-metre formation of pelts entangled by utility lines. It can be read as a analogy for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this section of the exhibit, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, whereby dense sheets of ice form as varying temperatures thaw and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' primary cold-season nourishment, lichen. This phenomenon is a result of global heating, which is taking place up to four times faster in the Far North than globally.

A few years back, I met with Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they hauled carts of animal nutrition on to the barren frozen landscape to provide through labor. These animals gathered round us, pawing the frozen ground in futility for vegetative bits. This expensive and labour-intensive procedure is having a significant effect on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. Yet the choice is death. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others submerging after sinking in lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. On one level, the installation is a memorial to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

The sculpture also emphasizes the stark contrast between the industrial understanding of power as a commodity to be utilized for gain and existence and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an inherent power in creatures, humans, and nature. The gallery's history as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be standard bearers for clean sources, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi argue their legal protections, incomes, and traditions are threatened. "It's challenging being such a limited population to protect your rights when the arguments are grounded in environmental protection," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has adopted the language of ecology, but still it's just attempting to find alternative ways to continue practices of expenditure."

Family Conflicts

The artist and her family have themselves disagreed with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent rules on herding. Previously, Sara's brother embarked on a series of unsuccessful legal cases over the required reduction of his animals, apparently to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a multi-year set of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge curtain of numerous animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it resides in the lobby.

Art as Awareness

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