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Guests to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an man-made sun, slid down helter skelters, and seen automated jellyfish hovering through the air. However this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this huge space—designed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a maze-like structure inspired by the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Upon entering, they can meander around or relax on skins, listening on earphones to tribal seniors imparting tales and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It might sound quirky, but the exhibit pays tribute to a obscure natural marvel: experts have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the incoming air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, helping the creature to survive in extreme Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "creates a sense of smallness that you as a person are not dominant over nature." She is a ex- journalist, children's author, and rights advocate, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that creates the potential to shift your perspective or spark some modesty," she adds.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The maze-like structure is one of several elements in Sara's immersive art project celebrating the culture, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They have experienced persecution, cultural suppression, and suppression of their tongue by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the work also highlights the people's issues connected to the environmental emergency, property rights, and imperialism.

Symbolism in Elements

Along the lengthy entry ramp, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot sculpture of skins entangled by power and light cables. It serves as a symbol for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this part of the artwork, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, whereby solid layers of ice form as changing weather liquefy and refreeze the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary cold-season food, moss. The condition is a result of global heating, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than in other regions.

A few years back, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they hauled carts of food pellets on to the exposed frozen landscape to dispense by hand. The herd surrounded round us, digging the frozen ground in vain for lichen-covered bits. This expensive and demanding method is having a drastic effect on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. Yet the choice is starvation. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after plunging into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the art is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

This artwork also emphasizes the sharp divergence between the industrial view of power as a asset to be exploited for profit and existence and the Sámi worldview of energy as an innate power in animals, individuals, and the environment. Tate Modern's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by regional governments. While attempting to be leaders for clean sources, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of windfarms, water power facilities, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their human rights, incomes, and traditions are threatened. "It's challenging being such a small minority to protect your rights when the justifications are rooted in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the rhetoric of ecology, but yet it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to persist in habits of consumption."

Family Struggles

The artist and her kin have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter rules on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's sibling initiated a set of finally failed legal cases over the forced culling of his herd, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a four-year collection of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal screen of 400 animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it resides in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work appears the sole domain in which they can be listened to by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|