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Visitors to Tate Modern are familiar to unusual experiences in its vast Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, slid down helter skelters, and observed automated jellyfish floating through the air. However this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this huge space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a winding design modeled after the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Upon entering, they can meander around or unwind on pelts, listening on earphones to Sámi elders telling stories and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It could seem quirky, but the installation pays tribute to a obscure biological feat: researchers have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it breathes in by 80°C, enabling the animal to endure in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "generates a perception of insignificance that you as a individual are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and land defender, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that generates the possibility to alter your outlook or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

An Homage to Sámi Culture

The labyrinthine design is among various components in Sara's absorbing commission showcasing the heritage, knowledge, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They have experienced oppression, cultural suppression, and repression of their tongue by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the work also highlights the people's struggles connected to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Components

On the lengthy entrance incline, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot formation of reindeer hides trapped by power and light cables. It serves as a symbol for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this component of the installation, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein solid sheets of ice develop as fluctuating weather liquefy and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season food, lichen. This phenomenon is a result of planetary warming, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Far North than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and joined Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to dispense manually. These animals surrounded round us, pawing the slippery ground in vain for mossy bits. This costly and labour-intensive process is having a severe effect on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. However the alternative is malnutrition. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are dying—a number from starvation, others drowning after falling into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the art is a monument to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

This artwork also emphasizes the stark contrast between the western interpretation of power as a asset to be harnessed for profit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an inherent power in animals, humans, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be leaders for sustainable power, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, water power facilities, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi contend their human rights, incomes, and culture are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the reasons are grounded in global sustainability," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has adopted the language of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find better ways to continue practices of use."

Personal Conflicts

Sara and her family have themselves conflicted with the state authorities over its ever-stricter regulations on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's sibling initiated a set of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a four-year series of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal screen of numerous 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 lobby.

Creative Expression as Activism

For many Sámi, visual expression appears the sole sphere in which they can be heard by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|