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Attendees to Tate Modern are familiar to unusual experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an artificial sun, slid down amusement rides, and observed automated sea creatures drifting through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nose cavities of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this huge space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a maze-like structure based on the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Once inside, they can meander around or chill out on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors imparting tales and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It might sound playful, but the artwork honors a rarely recognized biological feat: experts have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it inhales by eighty degrees, enabling the animal to endure in harsh Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "produces a feeling of insignificance that you as a person are not in control over nature." The artist is a ex- journalist, children's author, and land defender, who is from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that generates the possibility to shift your outlook or evoke some modesty," she continues.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like installation is among various features in Sara's absorbing commission showcasing the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They have faced discrimination, cultural suppression, and suppression of their tongue by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the work also draws attention to the community's challenges connected to the climate crisis, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Components

On the lengthy entry incline, there's a soaring, 26-metre formation of skins entangled by electrical wires. It serves as a metaphor for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this section of the artwork, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, whereby dense layers of ice appear as changing weather liquefy and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season sustenance, fungus. Goavvi is a outcome of climate change, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they hauled trailers of animal nutrition on to the exposed Arctic plains to provide through labor. These animals crowded round us, digging the icy ground in futility for lichen-covered pieces. This expensive and demanding method is having a significant effect on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the alternative is malnutrition. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from starvation, others drowning after plunging into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the art is a monument to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

This artwork also underscores the stark difference between the industrial view of electricity as a commodity to be exploited for profit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an inherent power in creatures, people, and land. The gallery's legacy as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by regional governments. As they strive to be standard bearers for sustainable power, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their legal protections, incomes, and way of life are endangered. "It's hard being such a small minority to protect your rights when the reasons are grounded in environmental protection," Sara notes. "Mining practices has appropriated the rhetoric of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to persist in patterns of expenditure."

Personal Conflicts

The artist and her family have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its tightening regulations on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's brother undertook a series of finally failed legal cases over the forced culling of his animals, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a extended series of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal drape of numerous reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it resides in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Awareness

Among the community, creative work appears the exclusive realm in which they can be heard by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|