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Attendees to Tate Modern are accustomed to surprising experiences in its vast Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an simulated sun, glided down amusement rides, and witnessed AI-powered jellyfish hovering through the air. However this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this huge space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a labyrinthine structure modeled after the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Once inside, they can stroll around or relax on skins, tuning in on earphones to community leaders imparting stories and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It might seem quirky, but the artwork celebrates a little-known scientific wonder: experts have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the ambient air it breathes in by 80°C, allowing the creature to endure in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "generates a perception of insignificance that you as a person are not in control over nature." She is a ex- writer, young adult author, and land defender, who is from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that creates the potential to alter your perspective or spark some humility," she states.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine design is part of a components in Sara's immersive exhibition celebrating the heritage, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They've faced oppression, integration policies, and suppression of their dialect by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the work also draws attention to the community's issues associated with the environmental emergency, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Elements

Along the long entry incline, there's a towering, 26-metre structure of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It represents a symbol for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this part of the installation, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein dense sheets of ice develop as changing conditions melt and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' key winter sustenance, fungus. Goavvi is a consequence of planetary warming, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than elsewhere.

A few years back, I visited Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they carried containers of supplementary feed on to the exposed Arctic plains to dispense by hand. These animals gathered round us, scratching the icy ground in vain for mossy bits. This costly and laborious process is having a severe influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. However the choice is starvation. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are dying—some from starvation, others suffocating after falling into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the work is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

This artwork also highlights the sharp contrast between the modern interpretation of energy as a asset to be harnessed for profit and existence and the Sámi outlook of life force as an natural power in animals, people, and the environment. Tate Modern's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by regional governments. While attempting to be exemplars for clean sources, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, water power facilities, and digging operations on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their human rights, incomes, and traditions are at risk. "It's challenging being such a limited population to protect your rights when the justifications are grounded in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Mining practices has appropriated the language of ecology, but still it's just striving to find alternative ways to maintain patterns of expenditure."

Individual Challenges

The artist and her kin have personally conflicted with the national administration over its tightening rules on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's brother embarked on a series of finally failed court actions over the forced culling of his livestock, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara developed a extended collection of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a massive drape of 400 reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

Among the community, creative work is the exclusive domain in which they can be listened to by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|