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Guests to Tate Modern are familiar to unexpected encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They have basked under an artificial sun, slid down amusement rides, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures hovering through the air. Yet this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nose chambers of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this huge space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a maze-like design based on the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal airways. Inside, they can wander around or chill out on pelts, tuning in on headphones to Sámi elders sharing narratives and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It may sound quirky, but the installation celebrates a obscure natural marvel: scientists have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it inhales by eighty degrees, enabling the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "generates a feeling of insignificance that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." She is a ex- reporter, young adult author, and environmental activist, who is from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Maybe that fosters the potential to alter your viewpoint or trigger some humbleness," she states.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The winding structure is one of several features in Sara's immersive exhibition honoring the traditions, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They've experienced discrimination, integration policies, and eradication of their tongue by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the installation also draws attention to the group's challenges relating to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Elements

On the lengthy access ramp, there's a looming, 26-metre sculpture of reindeer hides ensnared by electrical wires. It serves as a metaphor for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this component of the installation, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, whereby thick layers of ice form as fluctuating temperatures liquefy and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' key winter food, fungus. This phenomenon is a consequence of planetary warming, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than globally.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a icy season and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they hauled trailers of food pellets on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to provide through labor. The herd crowded round us, digging the icy ground in vain for vegetative bits. This expensive and demanding method is having a drastic impact on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the alternative is malnutrition. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—a number from lack of food, others submerging after plunging into streams through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the work is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm transporting the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The sculpture also underscores the stark difference between the western interpretation of energy as a commodity to be harnessed for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an natural essence in animals, individuals, and the environment. The gallery's past 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 leaders for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, river barriers, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi contend their human rights, incomes, and culture are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the reasons are based on global sustainability," Sara observes. "Extractivism has appropriated the language of sustainability, but still it's just aiming to find better ways to maintain habits of consumption."

Individual Struggles

She and her kin have personally conflicted with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent rules on herding. Previously, Sara's sibling initiated a series of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the forced culling of his livestock, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara developed a extended set of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive drape of 400 cranial remains, which was shown at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the entryway.

Art as Activism

For numerous Indigenous people, art is the sole realm in which they can be understood by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|