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Visitors to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an simulated sun, descended down amusement rides, and observed automated sea creatures floating through the air. However this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The newest artistic project for this immense space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a maze-like structure inspired by the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose airways. Upon entering, they can wander around or relax on pelts, listening on headphones to tribal seniors telling narratives and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It might seem whimsical, but the artwork celebrates a obscure scientific wonder: scientists have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the ambient air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the creature to endure in extreme Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "produces a sense of smallness that you as a human being are not in control over nature." She is a ex- writer, children's author, and environmental activist, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that generates the chance to alter your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she continues.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The winding structure is one of several features in Sara's absorbing exhibition showcasing the traditions, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total about 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They've endured oppression, forced assimilation, and repression of their language by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the work also draws attention to the group's issues associated with the global warming, property rights, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Materials

On the lengthy entrance slope, there's a looming, 26-meter structure of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It can be read as a symbol for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this section of the exhibit, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein solid coatings of ice form as varying weather melt and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' key winter food, fungus. This phenomenon is a outcome of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than in other regions.

A few years back, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and went with Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they hauled containers of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to distribute through labor. These animals gathered round us, scratching the slippery ground in futility for vegetative bits. This expensive and labour-intensive process is having a severe influence on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. But the choice is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are dying—some from lack of food, others submerging after plunging into lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the work is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

This artwork also underscores the stark difference between the modern understanding of power as a resource to be utilized for profit and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of energy as an natural life force in animals, humans, and the environment. This venue's history as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by regional governments. While attempting to be exemplars for renewable energy, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, water power facilities, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their legal protections, ways of life, and traditions are at risk. "It's hard being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the reasons are rooted in environmental protection," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the discourse of ecology, but still it's just striving to find better ways to continue habits of consumption."

Personal Conflicts

Sara and her kin have personally disagreed with the Norwegian government over its tightening rules on herding. A few years ago, Sara's brother initiated a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his animals, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a four-year series of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi including a massive drape of four hundred cranial remains, which was shown at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the entryway.

Art as Advocacy

For many Sámi, creative work is the only sphere in which they can be understood by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|