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Visitors to Tate Modern are familiar to surprising encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an man-made sun, descended down amusement rides, and observed robotic jellyfish floating through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this cavernous space—developed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes visitors into a maze-like design based on the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Once inside, they can stroll around or relax on reindeer hides, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders telling narratives and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It may appear playful, but the exhibit honors a rarely recognized biological feat: experts have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it breathes in by 80°C, helping the animal to thrive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "creates a feeling of inferiority that you as a human being are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- journalist, children's author, and rights advocate, who comes from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that generates the chance to change your outlook or spark some humility," she states.

An Homage to Sámi Culture

The maze-like design is among various features in Sara's absorbing commission showcasing the heritage, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They have faced discrimination, forced assimilation, and eradication of their dialect by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the work also highlights the people's challenges associated with the global warming, property rights, and external control.

Metaphor in Materials

Along the lengthy entry ramp, there's a looming, 26-meter sculpture of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It can be read as a analogy for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this part of the installation, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, whereby solid layers of ice develop as varying conditions melt and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' main cold-season nourishment, lichen. Goavvi is a result of planetary warming, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than globally.

Previously, I met with Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they transported carts of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured tundra to provide through labor. The herd gathered round us, digging the icy ground in vain for mossy bits. This resource-intensive and demanding procedure is having a severe influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the other option is malnutrition. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—a number from starvation, others suffocating after plunging into streams through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the work is a memorial to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

This artwork also highlights the stark difference between the western understanding of electricity as a resource to be utilized for profit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of energy as an innate essence in creatures, individuals, and nature. This venue's legacy as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by regional governments. As they strive to be leaders for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their human rights, ways of life, and culture are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to stand your ground when the justifications are rooted in saving the world," Sara comments. "Extractivism has co-opted the rhetoric of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just striving to find more suitable ways to continue habits of consumption."

Individual Struggles

Sara and her kin have personally disagreed with the national administration over its increasingly stringent regulations on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's brother undertook a set of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his animals, apparently to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a multi-year set of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal drape of numerous reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it resides in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Awareness

Among the community, visual expression seems the sole sphere in which they can be listened to by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|