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Guests to Tate Modern are used to surprising experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an artificial sun, glided down amusement rides, and seen automated sea creatures floating through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nasal chambers of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this cavernous space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a winding design modeled after the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Inside, they can wander around or unwind on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to Sámi elders sharing tales and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It may seem whimsical, but the artwork pays tribute to a little-known biological feat: scientists have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the creature to survive in extreme Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "creates a feeling of smallness that you as a person are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- writer, children's author, and environmental activist, who hails from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that generates the possibility to shift your perspective or trigger some humility," she continues.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The maze-like design is among various components in Sara's absorbing commission celebrating the traditions, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They have endured discrimination, integration policies, and eradication of their tongue by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and founding narrative, the installation also highlights the people's struggles relating to the global warming, property rights, and external control.

Symbolism in Materials

At the lengthy entry incline, there's a soaring, 26-meter structure of skins entangled by utility lines. It represents a metaphor for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this part of the artwork, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, wherein solid coatings of ice develop as changing temperatures thaw and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season nourishment, moss. The condition is a result of climate change, which is happening up to four times faster in the Far North than in other regions.

A few years back, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they carried containers of food pellets on to the barren frozen landscape to distribute through labor. The herd crowded round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered bits. This expensive and laborious procedure is having a significant impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. But the alternative is starvation. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others drowning after plunging into water bodies through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the installation is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Worldviews

This artwork also underscores the clear contrast between the modern interpretation of power as a asset to be harnessed for profit and existence and the Sámi outlook of energy as an natural essence in animals, individuals, and the environment. This venue's history as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be leaders for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their legal protections, incomes, and way of life are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to stand your ground when the justifications are based on global sustainability," Sara notes. "Mining practices has appropriated the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find alternative ways to continue patterns of expenditure."

Individual Challenges

The artist and her kin have themselves disagreed with the national administration over its tightening regulations on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's brother undertook a set of unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his livestock, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara developed a extended set of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal screen of 400 cranial remains, which was shown at the the show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it hangs in the entrance.

Art as Activism

Among the community, creative work seems the sole sphere in which they can be listened to by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|