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Guests to Tate Modern are accustomed to unexpected encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They have basked under an artificial sun, descended down amusement rides, and observed AI-powered sea creatures hovering through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nasal cavities of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this huge space—created by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a maze-like design based on the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Inside, they can wander around or chill out on pelts, tuning in on earphones to tribal seniors telling stories and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It might appear whimsical, but the artwork pays tribute to a obscure natural marvel: researchers have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it breathes in by 80°C, enabling the animal to thrive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "produces a sense of insignificance that you as a human being are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who comes from a herding family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that fosters the possibility to change your viewpoint or spark some humility," she continues.

An Homage to Sámi Culture

The maze-like design is part of a features in Sara's absorbing exhibition celebrating the heritage, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have experienced discrimination, integration policies, and eradication of their tongue by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi cosmology and founding narrative, the installation also draws attention to the people's struggles associated with the global warming, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Components

Along the long access slope, there's a towering, 26-metre structure of pelts entangled by power and light cables. It serves as a symbol for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this component of the installation, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which dense layers of ice develop as varying conditions thaw and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' key cold-season food, moss. This phenomenon is a outcome of planetary warming, which is happening up to four times faster in the Far North than in other regions.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and went with Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the exposed Arctic plains to dispense through labor. The herd gathered round us, scratching the slippery ground in vain attempts for vegetative bits. This expensive and demanding procedure is having a drastic influence on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. Yet the other option is death. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are dying—a number from starvation, others drowning after sinking in water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the installation is a monument to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

This artwork also highlights the sharp difference between the industrial view of energy as a asset to be exploited for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an innate essence in animals, humans, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be leaders for clean sources, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi argue their legal protections, livelihoods, and culture are threatened. "It's hard being such a small minority to protect your rights when the reasons are rooted in saving the world," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the discourse of ecology, but still it's just aiming to find alternative ways to persist in patterns of expenditure."

Individual Struggles

She and her relatives have themselves disagreed with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent regulations on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's brother initiated a series of finally failed court actions over the forced culling of his animals, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. To back him, Sara developed a extended series of artworks titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge screen of numerous animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017 event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Activism

For many Sámi, creative work is the sole realm in which they can be listened to by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|