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Guests to Tate Modern are accustomed to unexpected encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have basked under an man-made sun, descended down helter skelters, and observed automated jellyfish drifting through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nose cavities of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this huge space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a winding design inspired by the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Once inside, they can meander around or chill out on pelts, tuning in on earphones to community leaders imparting tales and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It could appear playful, but the exhibit pays tribute to a little-known scientific wonder: researchers have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it takes in by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to survive in harsh Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "creates a sense of insignificance that you as a person are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- writer, children's author, and rights advocate, who is from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that fosters the potential to alter your viewpoint or spark some modesty," she states.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The maze-like structure is one of several components in Sara's immersive art project honoring the culture, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They have experienced persecution, integration policies, and repression of their language by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the installation also spotlights the people's struggles relating to the climate crisis, property rights, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Elements

At the extended access slope, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot structure of reindeer hides entangled by utility lines. It can be read as a metaphor for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this component of the artwork, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby thick sheets of ice appear as varying temperatures melt and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' main winter food, fungus. The condition is a outcome of climate change, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than globally.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and went with Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they hauled carts of animal nutrition on to the exposed Arctic plains to distribute by hand. The herd gathered round us, pawing the icy ground in futility for mossy bits. This resource-intensive and laborious method is having a drastic influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. However the choice is starvation. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are dying—a number from starvation, others suffocating after sinking in lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the installation is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

The sculpture also highlights the sharp divergence between the western understanding of electricity as a commodity to be utilized for gain and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of life force as an inherent essence in animals, humans, and nature. Tate Modern's legacy as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by regional governments. In their efforts to be standard bearers for clean sources, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and way of life are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the arguments are rooted in saving the world," Sara comments. "Mining practices has adopted the rhetoric of ecology, but yet it's just striving to find alternative ways to continue practices of expenditure."

Personal Struggles

Sara and her relatives have themselves clashed with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent policies on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's sibling embarked on a set of unsuccessful legal cases over the required reduction of his animals, supposedly to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara produced a multi-year set of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge curtain of 400 cranial remains, which was shown at the the event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it resides in the entryway.

Art as Awareness

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