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Visitors to Tate Modern are accustomed to unexpected experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an simulated sun, glided down amusement rides, and seen AI-powered jellyfish hovering through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose passages of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a winding structure inspired by the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Inside, they can stroll around or relax on pelts, tuning in on earphones to community leaders sharing tales and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It could sound whimsical, but the exhibit honors a little-known scientific wonder: researchers have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it breathes in by eighty degrees, enabling the creature to survive in extreme Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "creates a sense of inferiority that you as a human being are not in control over nature." She is a former reporter, writer for kids, and land defender, who is from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that generates the possibility to alter your viewpoint or evoke some humility," she adds.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The winding structure is among various components in Sara's immersive art project honoring the heritage, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count about 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, forced assimilation, and eradication of their tongue by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the work also draws attention to the people's struggles connected to the environmental emergency, property rights, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Materials

At the lengthy entry ramp, there's a soaring, 26-metre structure of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It represents a metaphor for the societal frameworks limiting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this component of the exhibit, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby thick sheets of ice develop as varying conditions melt and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' main winter nourishment, moss. Goavvi is a result of global heating, which is happening up to four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions.

Previously, I met with Sara in a remote town during a icy season and accompanied Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they transported containers of food pellets on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to dispense through labor. The herd crowded round us, digging the slippery ground in vain for vegetative bits. This costly and laborious method is having a drastic effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the choice is death. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—a number from starvation, others drowning after plunging into lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the work is a monument to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

The sculpture also emphasizes the sharp contrast between the modern interpretation of energy as a resource to be exploited for gain and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an inherent life force in animals, people, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be standard bearers for sustainable power, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their legal protections, ways of life, and culture are at risk. "It's hard being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the arguments are grounded in saving the world," Sara observes. "Mining practices has co-opted the rhetoric of environmentalism, but still it's just striving to find more suitable ways to continue habits of consumption."

Family Conflicts

She and her family have personally conflicted with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent regulations on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's brother embarked on a sequence of finally failed lawsuits over the forced culling of his herd, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara produced a multi-year series of creations named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal curtain of 400 reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Art as Activism

For many Sámi, visual expression appears the only domain in which they can be heard by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|