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Guests to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an simulated sun, slid down helter skelters, and seen AI-powered jellyfish floating through the air. But this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nose chambers of a reindeer. The newest artistic project for this immense space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a maze-like structure inspired by the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Upon entering, they can wander around or relax on skins, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders sharing tales and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It might sound quirky, but the exhibit honors a little-known natural marvel: scientists have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the ambient air it takes in by eighty degrees, allowing the creature to thrive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "creates a perception of inferiority that you as a person are not dominant over nature." She is a ex- journalist, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that fosters the chance to change your perspective or evoke some modesty," she states.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The maze-like installation is among various elements in Sara's engaging commission celebrating the traditions, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have faced discrimination, integration policies, and eradication of their dialect by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the work also draws attention to the community's issues connected to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Elements

At the extended entrance slope, there's a looming, 26-metre structure of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It can be read as a analogy for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this section of the installation, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, wherein thick sheets of ice develop as fluctuating conditions thaw and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' key winter nourishment, fungus. The condition is a outcome of global heating, which is taking place up to four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions.

Previously, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they transported containers of animal nutrition on to the barren Arctic plains to distribute through labor. These animals crowded round us, digging the icy ground in vain attempts for mossy morsels. This expensive and demanding procedure is having a drastic impact on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the other option is death. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are succumbing—a number from starvation, others drowning after sinking in streams through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the work is a monument to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

The sculpture also underscores the sharp divergence between the modern interpretation of energy as a asset to be harnessed for gain and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of life force as an innate life force in creatures, individuals, and land. The gallery's legacy as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by regional governments. While attempting to be leaders for sustainable power, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, river barriers, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their legal protections, incomes, and way of life are endangered. "It's hard being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the justifications are grounded in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Mining practices has appropriated the language of sustainability, but still it's just aiming to find alternative ways to maintain patterns of expenditure."

Individual Struggles

She and her kin have personally disagreed with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent policies on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's brother embarked on a set of finally failed legal cases over the required reduction of his animals, supposedly to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara created a four-year collection of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge curtain of four hundred cranial remains, which was exhibited at the the event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entryway.

Art as Activism

For many Sámi, visual expression seems the exclusive realm in which they can be listened to by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|